Seven Years
by leahalexis
Summary: Sydney protested as he pushed her back against the mirror, "Vaughn is waiting." Sark said into her hair, "He never waits long." . . . Alternate season four; sequel to "Mirror Image."
1. Part One

**Title: **Seven Years

**Rating:** M

**Timeline**: Early middle of an alternate season four, following from the events of "Mirror Image," which interrupted the canon flow of things in the middle of season three. See "_Previously_" below for the high points, but actually reading the fic is more fun. I mean, Lauren and Sydney swap bodies—just imagine of the insanity!

**Pairings, for the categorically-inclined:** Starts out S/V with a Sarkney bent; there's also some light Weiss/Nadia in the mix. All bets are off though, once things get going. (Okay, fine, it's Sarkney, with a heavy dose of Vaughn/Nadia, a little Vaughn/Lauren, and a very little Jack/Irina. But you're ruining all the surprise.)

**Notes**: The full story has been posted over at SD-1, but it occurred to me it might make sense to upload it over here with "Mirror Image," too. So here it is. Chapters will go up whenever I get a free minute. There are like 40 of them, though, so it may take awhile.

--

_Previously_:

Thanks to a Rambaldi artifact Sydney steals on a mission midway through season three, Sydney and Lauren wake up in each other's bodies. Sydney's response to the situation is to angst about Vaughn and, after an illuminating phone call on Lauren's phone from Julian Sark, try to get to the bottom of Lauren's involvement in the Covenant and potentially discover more about her missing two years—with Jack's help, of course.

Lauren, meanwhile, takes the opportunity to dress up in black leather and indulge a few of Sark's Bristow-oriented fantasies. She also steals the artifact from the CIA and delivers it to the Covenant.

Sark, however, is ostensibly working for Irina and, after rendering Sydney helpless and capturing Jack, turns Lauren over to Irina. Much to Sydney's surprise, Irina needs her help—Lauren has turned the artifact over to the Covenant, and Irina needs Sydney to work with Sark to get it back. In exchange, Sydney will have her and her father's freedom and her own body back, as well the opportunity to learn more about her time as Julia Thorne. Sydney, unsurprisingly, agrees.

She and Sark are sent on a reconnaissance mission by McKennas Cole. Sark flirts shamelessly, and they run into Ana Espinosa and Arvin Sloane. Sloane wants the disk as well; he and Sydney have a private chat about it while Sark is escorted to a secured room in the basement, in which Sloane tells Syd about him and her mother's affair (and, we learn later, about Nadia). Sydney promptly kicks his ass and frees Sark.

In escaping, Syd and Sark run into none other than Agent Vaughn, who is worried about "Sydney," whose unconscious body was "stolen" from CIA custody, and relieved to see his "wife" safe. Sydney, playing Lauren, distracts Vaughn so Sark can get behind him with a gun. After thoroughly making out with Sark in front of a helpless Vaughn—to make sure there is no doubt in Vaughn's mind about his wife's affiliation—Sydney leaves him handcuffed to a fire escape.

That night, still tormented by their run-in with Vaughn, Sydney gets very, very drunk and sleeps with Sark. Sark doesn't seem to mind.

The next morning, Syd and Sark report to Cole at his compound, where they knock Cole out, steal the disk and a number of Covenant files, and return to Irina. Using the disk, Irina returns both Sydney and Lauren to their rightful bodies, and then insists Sydney stay the night before departing.

Sydney receives a phone call from Sloane: he has Vaughn, and is willing to exchange him at dawn for the disk. Sydney seduces Sark for the card that will give her access to Irina's office, then confronts her mother with the information she received from Sloane: that she has a sister. They fight. Sydney wins, and Irina tells her what the artifact does and why she's been trying to keep it away from Sloane: the dust off the artifact is the final ingredient in a serum that will allow Nadia, once Sloane finds her, to channel Rambaldi. Irina theorizes that Sydney's genetic make-up was close enough to Nadia's for the dust to have an effect on her as well—only instead of channeling a dead man, she switched bodies with her rival, Lauren.

Sydney manages to retrieve the disk—only to be confronted by Sark . . . and her father. Sark explains that Sloane contacted him as well, offering the data Sark needed to regain his inheritance in exchange for his assistance in getting the artifact. After Sydney left his room, he followed her; once he was sure she had Irina under control, he freed her father (and Lauren, who he then allowed to escape) and came to meet her here.

Sydney, Sark and Jack rendezvous with Sloane and exchange the artifact for Vaughn. Sark escapes. Sydney returns home with Vaughn and Jack, and discovers that her copy of the Covenant files is missing.

Sark contacts Sydney; he has the files and, if she meets him, he will return them to her. At their meeting, he returns the disk—he has made a copy for himself first, of course—and tells Sydney what he has discovered from the files: as Julia Thorne, she had learned about her sister, and the reason she erased her own memories was to protect her. The mystery of her missing two years has been solved . . . but Sydney is left more unsettled than ever.

--

**Part One**

Sydney's image in the mirror was resplendent in white. Her chestnut hair shone under the mass of silk flowers atop her head, and her skin glowed above the modest plunge of her neckline. Her veil lay delicately over her shoulders.

Something was missing. She put one hand to the pendant dangling from the slim chain around her neck, and glanced down at the full skirt, the tips of her shoes beneath the hem.

When she looked up, Sark was standing behind her.

"I told you to leave me alone," she said frostily, checking the backings of her drop earrings and staring firmly at her own face in the mirror.

"I came to offer my congratulations on your marriage," he said. His face was solemn, but there was laughter in his words.

"You've done it," she replied. "Now go."

When he didn't, she spun around to slap him, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him.

"You don't mean it," he murmured.

"Yes, I do," she said, and let him push her up against the glass and kiss her.

The brocade of her bodice pressed into the lapels of his suit; his hands pushed up her dress.

This wasn't right. There was somewhere she was supposed to be. Wasn't there?

His trousers were unfastened. She was hot and open and—

"Vaughn is waiting," she protested as he fucked her against the mirror.

Sark said into her hair, "He never waits long."

She pushed him away from her, and bundled up her skirts to dodge past him.

"It's too late, Sydney," he called after her as the hall telescoped in front of her—had it always been such a long way?—and when she finally reached the double doors at the head of the sanctuary, she could hear the service going on without her.

_But it's my wedding_, she thought, and pushed open the doors.

At the altar, Vaughn stood next to a woman with Sydney's hair, Sydney's dress, the familiar line of Sydney's own back. Confused, Sydney took a step back. The woman turned. The face was Lauren's, and when she saw Sydney, she smiled. . . .

-

The scream lodged in Sydney's throat as her eyes shot open and she registered where she was: the weight of the blankets across her legs, the heat of another body sleeping next to her own. The room was suffused with pre-dawn darkness, and the clock blinked 4:47.

Sydney turned her head Vaughn slept peacefully beside her, hair ruffled and dark where it fell slightly across his forehead, which was relaxed in sleep. She knew every line, every crease, of his face, she could trace the strength of his profile in her sleep, and, looking at him now, she was lost in tenderness. In love. But the dream—that horrible, uncomfortable dream, the edges of which had already begun to soften, to be forgotten, but still inspired a sense of inarticulate unease inside her. Shot through the unease was arousal, heavy in her belly and choked with guilt. _Sark_.

She said, softly, "Vaughn," but he merely smiled slightly in sleep and shifted, settling deeper into his pillow.

Sydney closed her eyes, then leaned forward, loosening the muscles that had tightened in sleep—the same muscles she'd strained two night previous fighting with one of Ceasar Allende's men. She'd gotten away, though, and with the priceless painting Allende would give APO anything to get back.

She'd questioned the appropriateness of the mission; her father had simply raised his eyebrows. By any means necessary, he'd reminded her. That was what black ops was all about. She just wished they could find some means that were less . . . well, like petty crime and bribery. It wasn't that she felt like a criminal—she was good at doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. She'd made her name with the CIA doing just that at SD-6. It was just that the whole thing didn't seem quite . . .worthwhile. Maybe she'd spent too much time in more deeply high-risk situations. Or maybe it was just that it didn't feel as if she was moving towards where she really wanted to be, the reason she'd accepted this job in the first place: closer to capturing Sloane.

She left the bed, grabbed a short silk robe from the dresser and slipped it over her arms as she crossed into the main room, heading for the kitchen, closing her bedroom door behind her.

"Did I wake you?" Nadia asked, her hint of an accent warming and softening her words. Her thick dark hair tumbled over her shoulders, bare but for the spaghetti straps of her sleep tank, and her cotton drawstring pants-clad legs were crossed where she sat in one of the dining room chairs. She looked so young, her face unmade, her eyes soft with sleep. She held a steaming cup of tea in her hands.

"No," Sydney said. She forced herself to smile. "Bad dream."

"I'm sorry."

Sydney crossed her arms reflexively, trying to push her own thoughts away.

"The water's probably still hot," Nadia offered when Sydney didn't continue. "I haven't put anything away yet, it's on the counter."

Sydney's second smile was more genuine, and she crossed the room to open the cabinet by the sink. Chamomile. Hers. Nadia only drank Yerba Mate, an import from Argentina. "Reminds me of home," she'd told Sydney, making an effort to sound carefree, flip. But a shadow had darkened her eyes, one that was equal parts wistfulness and hauntedness. Sydney hadn't pressed her—hadn't known how to, then, without shattering the new, tenuous bond between them.

Finding her sister had not been what Sydney had expected. With the data from the Covenant files she'd stolen—plus the intel the CIA had managed to collect while it searched for Sloane—she'd been able to track Nadia to Argentina, and then to Argentinean intelligence. And then Sydney had just . . . picked up the phone and called. No life-and-death mission, no _I'm here to rescue you_, or _You have to trust me_. Just a phone call, and then a flight out, and a lot of crying, and the necessity of telling Nadia about her parents. About Sloane—who Nadia knew of, from intelligence reports, of course—and about what he wanted from her. About how crucial it was that she stay away from him.

"You've put me in danger, coming here," Nadia had said, picking up on the doubt in Sydney's voice, on the lingering ghost of Julia Thorne, who had sacrificed everything she knew to keep Nadia safe. "He would be tracking your movements."

"I had to," Sydney said simply.

"I'm glad," Nadia said, and embraced her, and Sydney's eyes had filled with tears. _She had a sister._

When Jack Bristow had put together the APO team, he'd invited Nadia to join them and she had accepted. She wanted the chance to get to know Sydney.

"Keeping her close," Jack had explained in his usual brusque tone, "is the most efficient way of protecting her life, and preventing Arvin's endgame." His expression softened, just slightly. "You might invite her to stay with you."

_It will be easier to keep an eye on her_, she finished in her head, but appreciated her father's gesture all the same. He did care about her. More than anything, she knew—and the idea of it still filled her with uncomplicated pleasure. But everything had an angle, for him. Everything could be played. Sometimes she was afraid she was becoming like that too.

Sydney dropped the tea bag into her old CIA mug and poured the water, watching the bag as it was submerged. Color bloomed from the bag and spread through the whole cup. She added milk and carried it to the table.

"Trouble sleeping again?" Sydney asked, and Nadia answered with a wan smile.

"If you ever want to talk," Sydney began.

"I know," Nadia said, and looked away.

It was at moments like this, alone at night, that Sydney realized how far they really had to go before they could call themselves close. They were drawn to one another at a basic level, but all the little things that tied two people together—the laughter, late night talk, ice cream and games and things that weren't work—they were still missing. On missions, when it counted they were perfectly in sync, instinctually attuned to one another, but the rest of the time, during prep, in the dead space over coms, but particularly at home, it was awkward and stilted. It was going to take time, Sydney reminded herself over and over again. But this many months into knowing one another, the excuse had worn thin. The problem, Sydney suspected, was her. Sydney wasn't at ease with anyone anymore, not really since Francie, and Will.

Nadia, on the other hand, was doing fine. She was charmed by Marshall, had a great relationship with Weiss, and even she and Vaughn had a natural banter Sydney struggled to match with anyone these days, Vaughn included.

Her bedroom door opened and Vaughn came out, bare-chested, drawstring pants slung low on his hips.

"Hey Nadia," Vaughn said.

"Michael." Nadia took a sip of her tea.

Sydney looked up and smiled at him. He returned it and pressed a kiss to the top of her head before heading for the kitchen. When he came back, he had a mug too. He took the seat across from Sydney's.

"We should turn on the lights, as long as we're all awake," Sydney said half-heartedly, glancing up at the darkened fixture above them, but none of them did.


	2. Part Two

**Part Two**

The interior of APO never failed to remind Sydney of an upscale furniture store: clean lines, abstract shapes, a totally unlivable space in which she spent the vast majority of her time. It was sterile. Sometimes she felt as though she belonged here—sleek, modern, a sophisticated silhouette against the office's white walls—but other times she felt hopelessly out of place, longing for SD-6 of all things, with it's close-crowded cubicles and constant friendly bustle.

She stopped in the doorway of the conference room, where her former handler and current nearly-live-in boyfriend was hunched over a computer screen and a stack of files.

"Hey," she said, dimple forming in her cheek.

"Hey yourself," he said, looking up and giving her that smile that never failed to melt her, one side of his mouth tugging higher than the other.

"I'm heading out," she told him.

"I've got a few things left to do here," he responded, "but I'll see you at seven."

"Seven," she repeated, as if it were some secret shared only between them. Seven o' clock. Dinner.

Work had been so busy lately that they hardly saw each other outside of briefing rooms and breakfast. Vaughn was coming home later and later every night, especially since he'd been approached about his father—and determined the whole thing was a trick, a hoax, and Bill Vaughn was not alive after all. She understood; she knew what it was like to have everything you thought you knew about where you came from, who you were, turned totally inside out—no matter what the reality ended up being.

She'd thought if she waited, he'd talk to her about it. He always had before; the thing they were best at was knowing when to give each other space, because they both knew the other would come to them when they were ready. But after a few weeks he still hadn't said anything. So she'd suggested dinner: a date, something they'd never been able to have when he was her handler and she his undercover agent. At first she'd thought he would say no—he had hesitated a moment, and then, shaking his head, he'd said, "Syd, that's a great idea," and pulled her close to kiss her, softly, and say, "I've missed you."

They'd had to sync up their schedules first, of course: make sure neither of them were on call that evening. Reservations were even harder. An event in town meant that despite their having chosen a Thursday, most of the nicer downtown restaurants were booked solid into the night. They called ten restaurants before they found one that could take them.

But the difficulty only made her treasure it more—by the time the day arrived it had taken on the air of the unattainable, the impossible, and to be able to say, "Seven," with that air of confirmation was almost cathartic. The energy between them in that moment . . . it bloomed the way it always used to, flowing between them, strong, sure. Their relationship had become more than that bond they'd had at the beginning, of course, but it was that bond on which they had built what they had now, that bond which she had always assumed would buoy them no matter what else happened.

Lately she'd been reaching back there more and more, trying to regain that tenuous magic that defined them: that connection they shared in the face of everything aligned against them. Because since Lauren . . . .

Sometimes, especially at first, when he was lying next to her, it was as if he'd go someplace else. Remembering Lauren, Sydney would always assume, with despair and with a gut-deep twist of envy. But she never said anything. She gave him time, space, anything he needed. Because she didn't know what else to do for him.

It wasn't entirely altruistic. She still carried her guilt, curled up inside her stomach so tight against her ribs that sometimes she couldn't breathe. Because every so often—not all the time, not regularly—when Vaughn cradled her face in his hands and moved slowly between her thighs—she thought, inadvertently, of Sark.

_Getting even_, she tried to rationalize. But that wasn't quite true. Vaughn had married Lauren, and she'd slept with Sark, and if getting even had been her goal, she would have been done with this. Instead, she was filled with resentments, anxieties . . . desires. Sleeping with Sark, even if it hadn't been to secure Vaughn's release, Vaughn's life, wasn't the unforgivable part; the part of her that suspected that, given the opportunity, she'd do it again, was.

Sometimes she wondered if they'd done the right thing, she and Vaughn, picking up where they left off. She loved him—more than anything—but he way they were with each other, now . . . .

She'd been there, at his bedside, when he'd woken in the hospital, still bruised and cut from his time as Sloane's prisoner. She had been almost asleep herself when his fingers had tightened convulsively on hers, and he had turned his head to look at her wonderingly, whispering, "Syd?"

And then the last few months had rushed into his eyes, and his face had taken on a look of horror, then despair. He choked, "I'm so sorry, Sydney. Oh, God, Sydney . . . ." And then he had cried, and she had held him, and he'd kissed her and kissed her, as if he were ravenous, until she had gently disentangled herself and eased him back down into the hospital bed, whispering that he needed rest, that she'd be there when he woke up again, that she wasn't going anywhere.

The first time they'd made love again he'd whispered again and again how sorry he was about everything, about giving up on her and about Lauren, but that had only made Sydney feel further away from him, not closer. She was still angry with him, she realized later. She'd spent a lot of time and every trying to let go of that: there was no point in it, Lauren was gone, and evil, and Sydney hadn't exactly been true to him even before Sark. Will, Simon . . . who knew who else, when she was Julia. But remembering that didn't help. Because Vaughn had betrayed her first.

At first, when she'd felt, as she sometimes did, a twinge of fury, she had channeled it into her work, into finding out who had done this to her, to them—who had taken away her memory, and her life with it. The files she had taken from Cole's computer named the people in charge of her project; the doctor who had worked with her directly was dead by her hand already, but he had hardly worked alone. They had all turned up dead by the time she tracked them down, however, and the Covenant leaders themselves had remained frustratingly elusive. It had mattered less and less, however, as time went on: as she made contact with Nadia, as she and Vaughn finally found a balance to their relationship. There were more important things to worry about, immediate things.

She'd thought she'd put it all to rest, but it kept coming back to her: in dreams, in unguarded moments. And she was getting thinner. Her angles were sharper than ever, and even her father—who rarely registered anything not explicitly work-related—had noticed.

"You need to eat something, Sydney," he'd said just the day before, placing a paper bag (in which she'd later found a Styrofoam cup of squash bisque from a local restaurant) down directly on top of the report she was reviewing.

"Dad," she started, but he just fixed her with his usual stony glare and left her with the soup, which she'd eaten, because he'd remembered her favorite.

But when she'd gotten home that night she hadn't been able to get anything down. She took a few vitamins, with a tall glass of juice, but that was all. She lied to Nadia, said she'd grabbed something on the way home. Vaughn worked late enough that when he got in, he didn't even ask.

Tonight, however, would be different. On the subway ride home she closed her eyes and tilted her head back over the seat, letting herself relax. She smiled at the other commuters getting on the train as she exited at her stop, and helped Nadia, who she met at the front door, carry in bags of groceries.

"This is a lot of food," Sydney commented, starting to unload the vegetables and tuck them into the bottom drawer in the fridge. "I don't even know what this vegetable is."

"Do you remember the cookbook I found on Ebay?" Nadia tucked the bread into the breadbox on the counter.

"Remember? The one the woman who ran your orphanage cooked from every night when you were a girl?" Sydney smiled over her shoulder. "You couldn't stop talking about it. Very rare, 'Buy it Now' for two weeks' salary. . . ."

Nadia handed her a carton of milk, a dozen eggs, and a jug of juice. "It came in today. I'm making empanadas. Do you want any?"

"I'd love to, but Vaughn and I have plans."

"Of course," Nadia said, "the date! I can't believe I forgot. I was just talking to Eric about it yesterday."

Sydney reassured her, "But the empanadas sound amazing."

"I'll make them again some other time." She grinned. "I'll be lucky if they're edible this first try. I'll probably end up burning them and having pizza for dinner. Besides," she added as she began folding the paper bags to tuck underneath the sink, "Eric offered to come over and keep me company if I get lonely."

Sydney wasn't sure if it was in Nadia's tone, or her words, or her posture, but something made her hesitate, ask, "If you'd rather I stay home tonight—"

"It's fine," Nadia assured her. "I need to catch up on some reading, have some down time." She smiled. "It will be nice to have the place to myself for a few hours. Go. Get ready."

Sydney reached over and squeezed her hand, and then went to take a quick shower before Vaughn arrived.

-

She said goodnight to Nadia and closed the apartment door behind her. Vaughn offered his arm and, smiling, tucking her hair behind her ear, she took it.

"I like your hair down," he said to her as they walked towards his car.

"I always wear my hair down."

"I know." He grinned, and all the doubts she'd been feeling felt silly. So what if he'd been opting not to join her for lunch during the week? So what if he came home late once in a while? It was just work. They were all under a lot of pressure to make APO a success, to reward the CIA's faith in them.

But at the restaurant Vaughn seemed distracted. She tried to talk about Saturday night—maybe renting a movie, maybe actually taking some time and really making love instead of having the kind of route, if comforting, sex they had been having—as they waited for their food, but he said something about Weiss, promising to hang out, and checked his watch.

"Some place you need to be?" she asked, trying to keep her voice light. Maybe she wasn't trying hard enough—it came out harsher than she'd meant it to.

"No, of course not." He sipped his drink. "It's just been awhile since we ordered."

But something felt off. So when the food arrived, she tried again. "Next weekend," she said, "we could go somewhere. Just us. No wigs, no coms."

Vaughn's forehead creased, fork paused a few inches above his plate. "It's a great idea, Syd, but you know how busy we are at work right now."

She watched him for a few moments, and then she said, "Are you avoiding me?"

He nearly choked on his food, and for a moment she wished she hadn't said it. But then he said, "What are you talking about? I'm sitting right in front of you," and he was using that tone she hated, the _I can't believe how juvenile you're being right now_ one, and she didn't regret it at all.

"Don't talk to me like I'm twelve," she snapped.

"Sydney," he began, as if to soothe her, but there was a reproach in his voice as well, and it set her teeth on edge.

She tamped down ruthlessly on her temper. "Vaughn. Please do not make me feel as if I am being unreasonable."

He scowled. "You know I hate it when you do this."

"Do—" She put her fork down carefully, too angry all of a sudden to trust her own self-control. She wanted to make a scene, but that would be stupid. Really, really stupid. "Let's just go home."

He blanched. "We've already ordered," he said stiffly. "We might as well stay and eat."

"I don't care," she said.

And all of a sudden it was as though something had slammed shut behind his eyes. They were cold. "Well, I do."

She stared at him in shock. She debated walking out. She could call a cab. Or Nadia. Nadia would pick her up. But she didn't. She picked her fork up again and speared an olive in its tines. Across from her, still closed, Vaughn ate in silence. She wasn't sure what had just happened. They'd fought before, but this felt . . . different.

He paid the bill; she let him. She didn't say anything about the classic rock he played too loudly on the ride home. As they pulled up to her apartment, she said, "Do you . . . want to come in?" Her temper has cooled considerably on the ride home, and mostly she just felt weary. If he came in, they could figure this out. She was sure of it. And they needed to, before the rift between them got any worse.

"I think it's better if I don't," he said, not looking at her. "I'm sorry, Sydney."

And then he was gone, and she was standing alone on the walk up to her door.

She remained there for nearly a minute, stunned: vulnerable to surveillance, to attack, to any passerby. Then she turned and walked slowly to her door. She unlocked it, and then relocked it from inside and dropped her purse in the kitchen on her way through. The living room light was on.

"Nadia?" she called half-heartedly as she entered, but Nadia wasn't there.

"Nadia?" she called again. Nadia's bedroom door was open, and the light was on in there as well. "Hey, I just wanted to—" Sydney started as she pushed the door open.

The bed, like the rest of the apartment, was empty.


	3. Part Three

**Part Three**

A chill swept up from the base of Sydney's spine. Crouching, she pulled the gun from underneath Nadia's dresser and checked it—loaded—before moving further inside the bedroom. Nothing. The bed covers were pulled back, and the book Nadia had been reading lay haphazardly on the floor. A few of the drawers were open on the dresser, clothing peeking out or hanging over the edge, but that was how Nadia always left them. The blouse and pair of pants she had been wearing were draped across the chair by the window, her jewelry scattered across the vanity.

The bathroom was empty as well. Toothbrush standing in the holder. Toothpaste, hairbrush, antiperspirant on the counter. All of Nadia's toiletries were accounted for. Her towels were dry.

Gun drawn, Sydney checked every room in the apartment. Then she backtracked to the kitchen and pulled her cell from her bag.

"Weiss?" she asked, eyes darting between the doors she could see. "Is Nadia with you?"

"Don't I wish," Weiss said. Then, "Wait, Syd— Is everything—"

"I'll call you back." She disconnected, and dialed again.

"Bristow."

"Dad, I think something's happened to Nadia."

"Where are you?" Clipped, efficient tones. Immediately she felt the muscles in her neck and shoulders release.

"At home. Nadia's not here."

"Signs of struggle?"

"No." Sydney glanced over her shoulder, then back into the living room.

"I'll try her APO pager."

"I'll see what I can find here. I might have missed something."

"Sydney, if you don't feel safe—"

"I'll be fine. Just find Nadia."

She slid the cell phone back into her bag and started again with the kitchen. Twenty minutes later she was still empty-handed. The apartment was immaculate: nothing out of place. Her own things hadn't been touched. Everything that had altered since Sydney had left with Vaughn two and a half hours earlier was explainable through Nadia's usual evening routines. She had nothing.

Her father called to say he hadn't been able to reach Nadia, but that they shouldn't overreact. If she hadn't returned by morning, he said, they would call in more assistance. If she'd been taken, they'd be contacted—until then there was no reason to think Nadia was in any danger.

"Something's off here, Dad," she told him. "I can feel it."

"I wish I didn't agree with you," he said, and hung up.

Weiss rang back a quarter past twelve, frantic. When Sydney picked up the phone to answer, she noticed she had seven voicemails. All Weiss.

"Syd, thank God, I thought—did you find her? Is she there?"

"No," Syd said, finally allowing herself to sink down onto one of the kitchen stools and close her eyes. "We haven't been able to locate her."

"I can't believe this," Weiss was saying as Sydney rubbed her temples. "I can't—This is unbelievable. Someone should have been there, to—I should have pushed harder, talked her into letting me come over tonight. Made her make me empanadas . . . ."

_Empanadas_, Sydney thought, and her eyes shot open. The cookbook. Nadia's cookbook. It had been on the kitchen counter when Sydney had left. Her eyes scanned the kitchen. Nothing.

"Is Vaughn there with you?" Weiss asked.

"What? No," Sydney answered, distracted, as she opened the cabinet where they kept the other cookbooks—an old Betty Crocker cookbook (Sydney's) and a few Nadia had brought with her. The new one wasn't there.

"Well, have you _called_ him?" Weiss asked. "He'd want to know." Then: "Wait, didn't you guys go out tonight?"

It wasn't on the bookshelf, either. It wasn't anywhere.

"I think I've got something," Sydney said, already gathering her jacket and her purse and heading for the door. "Call Marshall, and meet me at the office."

"Shouldn't we call your fath—"

"Nadia's _missing_, Weiss. Dad won't be able to do anything until tomorrow, not officially. But we might be able to do something _now_."

"No problem," Marshall said when she told him what she needed. "That's like . . . it's no problem."

They were in a conference room in the nearly deserted APO offices. It was the middle of the night but it could have been broad daylight outside for all they would have been able to tell: the florescent lights were just as bright now as they had been at 3 PM that afternoon. Sydney felt dislocated. _None of this is real_, she thought to herself, trying it on. She liked how it fit a little too well.

"How long is it going to take?" she asked out loud, leaning on the desk beside Marshall as he opened his laptop and began to type.

"Couple minutes. Depends on how long it takes for us to find the Ebay transaction."

"It's a cookbook," Sydney said. "Argentinean, I think."

"We're better off going through her account. I mean, if you know it. Do you know it? Because if not I can still—"

"Nadia1235689."

"Great. Okay. Just—" he cut off abruptly, brow furrowing as his fingers flew.

Grimly satisfied, Sydney turned just in time to see Weiss arrive. "Had to get dressed," he said as he ducked in the door. "How are we doing?"

She gestured to Marshall.

"Where's Mike?"

"I didn't call him," Sydney said.

Weiss looked like he was going to question her, but then he must have changed his mind, because he sat back on his heels and stuffed his hands in his pants pockets. "Do you want coffee?"

"Yeah," she said, and managed a smile. "Thanks."

Time passed quickly; Sydney was so exhausted emotionally that she felt numb. She was thankful for Weiss's silent company, and the coffee he refilled, even if he only did it to break the monotony.

At 5 AM, Marshall burst out, "Got it! Finally. People are really taking their online auction security seriously these days."

They stared at him.

"That was . . . it was a joke." When they only continued to stare, he rushed on, "The Ebay account lists the seller as living in the northeastern part of Argentina—natural for someone selling an Argentinean cookbook, right? But the _posting_ was made from here in L.A."

"Can you pinpoint the exact location?" Sydney asked.

"Hey," he said, turning back to the keyboard, "who do you think you're talking to? It may just take . . . another . . . minute . . . ."

Weiss pulled her aside as Marshall worked. He seemed almost jittery, his voice and eyes flatter than usual. "Syd, do you really think the cookbook has something to do with this?"

"It's all we've got," she said. "It's the only thing that was out of place in the apartment. I don't know what it has to do with Nadia being taken, but its got to mean something."

Weiss looked sick. "What if—what if nobody took her at all? What if she left on her own?"

She hadn't thought of that. Why hadn't she thought of that?

"Without saying anything? And took nothing but that cookbook?" Sydney shook her head. "She wouldn't. Not unless she was in some kind of trouble."

He swallowed. "Except how well do we really know Nadia?" he said, voice low, and it occurred to Sydney that this is what he'd been thinking of as they sat, waiting and drinking coffee. While she had replayed the last few months of her life over and over mindlessly to distract herself from the situation at hand, Weiss had been working through the possibilities one by one, even the ones he didn't like. She felt all of a sudden like a coward.

_What if_ Weiss was right? _What if_ Nadia had been working at cross-purposes all this time? The book could have been a message. Instructions to abort, or come home. Irina had used books.

"We have to find her, Weiss," was all Sydney said.

Whatever decisions she needed to make, she'd make then, not now. The only thing that mattered now was making sure her sister was alright.

The next evening they still had nothing. Or rather, Sydney amended, nothing useful—they had a location: a closed up building that, raided, had yielded only an abandoned server, totally erased.

She and Dixon had performed the raid themselves, with Weiss as backup; Vaughn had requested leave from Sydney's father via email, and that put their task force two members short of full strength. As much as Sydney and Weiss might have needed sleep, they weren't going to get it. But the longer she went without sleep, the larger the specter of some sort of betrayal on Nadia's part became in Sydney's mind.

When she had shared her and Weiss' fears about the reason for Nadia's disappearance with her father, she could tell by his expression that the possibility had already occurred to him—and that he hadn't discounted it. She shouldn't have been surprised.

"It doesn't change the plan," he had said evenly. "We find Nadia. She has too much information about our operations to be allowed to relinquish it to anyone outside of APO."

It wasn't the first time he had reminded her of Sloane. Only the most recent.

"Perhaps it would be better," he suggested, "if you continued to trust that Nadia would not have left willingly." When she hesitated, he said, "Take this for what it is, which is merely conjecture. But I believe your sister cares about you, Sydney. Of that, at least, I have little doubt."

She was surprised to find that, leaving his office, her mind was more at ease. She was able to take a short nap at her desk, and felt more focused as Marshall presented her and her father and Weiss the name of the building's owner, one Geoffrey Gottfried, "who until recently," Marshall reported with his usual flushed sense of accomplishment, "worked for the CRF."

The CRF—what had been left of the Covenant after Sark had stolen back his money and the information in Sydney's files had compromised a significant number of its operatives. Sydney shivered, and glanced reflexively at the door; they were in the largest of the APO conference rooms, and the glass-paned walls never failed to make her feel tactically insecure, no matter how many safeguards she knew stood between them and the rest of the world.

"What happened recently?" she asked Marshall as she turned back.

"Well, um," Marshall said, "see . . . he sort of . . . ." He tried a weak smile. ". . . died."

"Died. So the CRF connection is completely useless," Weiss muttered. He was silent for a moment, then slammed his hand down onto the conference table. "_Damnit_."

"Agent Weiss," Jack Bristow said sharply, "your outbursts are not helpful."

Weiss hadn't been able to get any sleep at all, and he was wound tighter than Sydney could ever remember seeing him. He'd been more snappish than usual, his digs taking on a harder, crueler edge and his interruptions becoming more belligerent than snappy.

There was a moment as Weiss faced her father across the table in which Sydney's breath caught in her throat, and then, mouth tight, Weiss turned abruptly and left the room. The door slammed shut behind him, and it took all of Sydney's years of espionage training not to cringe visibly at the sound.

"Do we know who killed him?" Jack asked Marshall calmly.

"Yes," Marshall said definitively. "Albert Gonzales." Then he paused, and looked at Sydney apologetically. "He's dead, too."

Sydney put away the possibility that Nadia had been complicit in her own disappearance in order to think the situation through; there'd be time to consider it from the other angle after. Presuming Nadia had been kidnapped against her will—someone had to have planned this very carefully; they'd taken care of every lose end. Sloane? But then why had he waited this long? The likelihood of him just having found out was low. Their mother? Sydney felt a pang of grief, of guilty regret: Irina hadn't been in contact since Sydney had left her handcuffed to her own desk.

Still. Either of them could have taken Nadia without a struggle. Nadia had tried to deny it, but she wanted to meet them, to know them, just as Sydney had wanted to know Irina—Nadia never said anything, but she touched her mother's picture on the mantle, and asked about Emily so Sydney would talk about Sloane. Nadia would have gone with either of them, willingly if not trustingly. And she didn't know, not really, the kind of trouble she would be walking into. Sydney had told her, but Sydney knew as well as anyone how impossible it was to believe the Rambaldi stories, the lengths his followers would go to in order to fulfill his prophecies, without having experienced it firsthand. . . .

"There is . . . one thing," Marshall ventured. "It's not a thing, exactly, it's a person. Gonzales' former boss. It might not mean anything, I mean, it might not be helpful, but I noticed a note about it in the CIA file and since, well, he and I used to chat sometimes back at SD-6, so it kind of stuck in my mind—"

"_Who is it_, Marshall?" Her father, but Sydney felt the same edgy strain tickling her own throat.

Marshall swallowed, and gave a little nervous laugh. "Sark."

Jack looked at Sydney.

"No," she said immediately.

"Sydney . . . ."

"Absolutely not."

"You're being juvenile, Sydney," he admonished her, and she said, "I don't care."

"Wait," Marshall said, eyes flitting from one of them to the other. "What'd I miss?"

She glared at Jack. No one but they, and a handful of high-level CIA directors, knew what had happened to her the year before. As far as the rest of the team was concerned, Sydney had been abducted while unconscious by the Covenant and rescued by Jack, who had picked up on something suspicious in his meeting that morning with Lauren Reed and followed her to Sydney.

Her stomach roiled, and she realized: she'd been insane, thinking she could just bury it, forget it had ever happened. Everything Sydney buried returned to haunt her: her mother, her doubts about Vaughn; the viciousness in Lauren's sneer and the guilelessness of Sark's face when he . . . . As adept as she was at compartmentalization, in her weakest moments she couldn't prevent the partitions she'd constructed from snapping and the contents of her overtaxed mind from swirling together sickly until all she knew was a desperate, squirming shame. It was the same way she'd felt when she returned from death: that there was something she had done that was horrible, if not unforgivable, that she did not want to remember but that she was driven, obligated, to recall. It was the feel of having been, for however long or short a time, someone else. Someone she didn't want to be.

"It's the most efficient way," Jack said, and his voice wasn't without compassion, but it wasn't, also, without an undertone of authority.

"Hello?" Marshall interjected.

The doors slid open automatically as Vaughn approached, and Sydney broke her father's gaze to look at him—he looked haggard, his eyes bloodshot. He looked as if he'd been drunk, not sick, and their fight came back to her with sharp-edged clarity.

"Weiss briefed me," he said as he reached the table and sat down without looking at her. He left a chair between himself and Sydney, which hurt. "He's pacing in the entryway."

"Good," Jack said shortly, and it could have applied to either statement. "Sydney and I were just discussing our options."

"Yeah?" Vaughn glanced at Sydney briefly, but looked away again before she could catch his eye. "That's great. Do we have a lead?

"Barely," Sydney said murderously.

Vaughn asked, "What have we got?"

"Julian Sark," Jack said, and Vaughn froze.

"Sark? He had something to do with this?"

There was a note of hysteria in his voice, and Sydney didn't blame him for it—not after Lauren. She'd heard him hiss Sark's name in his sleep more than once, during those dreams she didn't dare wake him from after the first time had left him haunted for days. The look in his eyes when she'd shaken him awake . . . . She'd never seen him like that. Mad, in the sense of being nearly mindless. Because of Lauren. And Sark was bound up with that too tightly to ever be extricated.

That, if nothing else, had convinced her she shouldn't ever tell him what really happened the year before. She couldn't put him through that. And she didn't think she could live with the way he would look at her after. Or with how thoroughly it would connect her in his mind with the woman who had betrayed him.

"He might know something about the people that did," Jack said. "I'm sending Sydney to talk to him."

"Why Sydney?" Vaughn looked at her then, finally, wildly.

Jack raised his eyebrows. "Who would you have me send instead? You?"

Vaughn opened his mouth, and then shut it again.

"Now. Marshall should be able to determine Sark's last known whereabouts and—"

"I know where he is," Sydney interrupted. She closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to see Vaughn or her father look at her. She tightened her fingers on the tabletop. "I ran into him on a mission in Crete a few months ago. He . . . told me how to contact him."

She wasn't sure whether the expression on Jack's face when she opened her eyes again was admiration or disgust. She didn't have the courage to look at Vaughn at all.

Jack nodded. "Do it. Find out whatever you can."

"I understand," she said, and stood. She heard the scraping of Vaughn's chair as he stood as well.

"And Sydney?" Jack added as she turned to go. "Don't make any deals you don't feel comfortable making. If necessary, we'll find another way."

She nodded. "Thank you," she whispered.

Outside the conference room she had to run to catch up with Vaughn, who was striding quickly toward the exit.

"Vaughn," she called. "Michael!"

He stopped when he reached the end of the hallway, just before the door to the outside world. He turned around as if it were the last thing he ever wanted to do.

"I know this must be hard for you," Sydney said, reaching for his hand. "I know that you and Sark—"

He shook her off. "I can't, Sydney." He took a step back, brow deeply creased as he bent his head to avoid her eyes. "I . . . I just can't, all right?"

"I know we fought last night," she said desperately, losing her grip on him, on _them_, "but that doesn't mean I can't be here for you if you—"

"I have to go," he said.

"Michael—"

"I have to go," he said again, and then he was gone, and Weiss was calling out her name behind her, and, stunned and not a little broken, she let him go.


	4. Part Four

**Part Four**

_Sixteen hours earlier . . ._

Nadia gasped in breath, jerked, and found herself unable to move. Her heart was beating too quickly, and her mouth felt painfully dry. She tried to swallow and it was as if her throat was cracking. She couldn't see anything; everything around her was dark. Dust tickled her nose. Her neck was cramped, her shoulders sore from her arms being pulled back and bound, and from their ache she assumed she'd been there and unconscious for hours.

A whimper pushed past her resolve and there was movement somewhere close by, a rustle, like the shifting of a person moving to stand, and then a voice: "Nadia?"

Her head was still thick from whatever drug had been used to knock her out, but she knew she wasn't wrong about this: she knew that voice. She felt cold all the way through with shock. _No_. Because it didn't sound like he had come to rescue her. It sounded like he'd been there waiting for her to wake up.

A match was struck—the sound of it was unmistakable—and then Vaughn's face was visible, deeply shadowed, in the flickering light. He produced a candle from the thick darkness and lit it.

"The lights here don't work," he explained as he set it down on the floor several feet away—too far for her to reach with either legs or hands were she able to free either. "Are you all right?"

She tried to speak—_Does it look like I'm alright?_—but it came out a hoarse, mangled cry.

Vaughn looked alarmed. "I'll get some water. I didn't think—I don't have a lot of experience with this."

She wasn't sure whether or not that was encouraging. Following him warily with her eyes as best she could in the low light, she worked her wrists against one another. Tight. Too tight. _Damnit_.

"Here," he said, holding the cup carefully to her lips.

She accepted the water. She wanted to refuse it, but she didn't think she could speak without it. And this was Vaughn. Her sister's boyfriend. If she could talk to him, maybe . . . . Whatever he was trying to accomplish here, there had to be a better way.

"Good?" he asked, and she swallowed gingerly, and nodded.

He set the cup down and turned concerned eyes back on her.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked, and her voice was hoarse but at least he could understand her now.

"I'm sorry," he said, and his eyes clouded. "I don't want to."

"Then _don't_," she pleaded.

His face was anguished. "I wish it didn't have to be this way. But I have to find her."

"Her who? Does . . . ." Nadia swallowed again, trying to work the spit up in her mouth. "Does it have something to do with Sydney?"

Maybe Sydney was in trouble. Then at least Nadia would understand, would know what to try. _What would Sydney say, Michael? Sydney wouldn't want you to do this_. But he'd been _with_ Sydney, hadn't he, when Nadia had been attacked?

Unless . . . unless Sydney was . . . . Nadia struggled to keep herself steady. She and Sydney weren't really . . . close, exactly, quite . . . but she knew her sister, and Sydney would never do this. She loved her. She was Nadia's _family_, the one person that . . . .

"Sydney?" Vaughn's head jerked up, and for a moment Nadia could see his eyes were wild. "No, why . . . . No. This is about Lauren."

This was surreal. Nadia was starting to have trouble following. "Your ex-wife?"

"I have to find her, Nadia."

"But what does that have to do with me?"

"She said she'd help. She said she could help me find Lauren."

"Michael," Nadia said urgently, "who?"

"I'm sorry," he said to her again, moving to her side and sliding up the sleeve of her shirt. She struggled, but he held her arm steady as he slid a syringe from his pocket with his other hand.

"Please, Michael, please," she begged, voice rising, but then the drug was flowing through her system, and his face got even darker, and she was gone.


	5. Part Five

**Part Five**

Julian Sark began his morning as he had begun nearly every morning these past few months: with the glorious sight of the sunrise over the water as he took his morning coffee, today a richly fragrant blend he'd had shipped in from somewhere exotic enough it had managed to slip even his mind. Behind him, in his bed, a pair of slender, golden feet had poked their way out of the bottom of the mound of covers under which their owner still slept.

Sark smiled absently, and turned his attention back to the sunrise.

He had company many mornings, but far from all, or even most. The women he brought to bed were never Sydney, but he never asked them to be. He hadn't even asked that of Sydney, the two times he'd been fortunate enough to have her there. It was beneath him to pretend; he would rather face reality than dress it up with half-truths and wishful thinking, and it was something that he often credited, privately, with keeping him alive. And so he would not tell himself that Sydney would someday be back there, just as he did not try to tell himself that that wasn't what he wanted.

It was unexpected, and rather remarkable when one thought about it, but he had discovered himself to be in love with Sydney Bristow. It was his early infatuation with Irina, he fancied, that had caused his affections to become fixed upon her daughter. One could not often escape the influences of one's formative years entirely, after all—though of course he himself had done his best. He had other theories, but that one was his personal favorite, largely due to how unlikely it was to be true. Irina and her daughter were very different people.

Last night's companion shifted underneath the bedding, and her dark tousled head appeared. She really was a lovely girl, soft and willing in his arms, and he hoped she wouldn't make a fuss.

"Good morning," he greeted her genially.

She smiled at him, and slipped out of his bed, padding out onto the balcony bare as the day she was born. He held out his right arm to let her slide beneath it, as it was obvious she was heading there anyway and her presence there would not bother him one way or another, and she settled comfortably against his side, pleasantly warm against the bare skin of his torso as the sun lifted above the horizon and the colors of the sunrise muted and faded altogether.

"Are you always up so early?" the girl asked sleepily, nuzzling rather sweetly into his shoulder.

"An old habit I've found difficult to break," he told her truthfully. "I can have some breakfast sent up, if you're hungry."

"To early for food," she said, yawning. She ducked out from under his arm and took his hand. "You should come back to bed."

He shook his head gently, politely, as if he were truly tempted. "I have things to do, love."

She regarded him a moment with her large, dark eyes, and then said, tone somewhat muddled, "I'd better go, then."

"It might be best if you did," he said, but took her hand and kissed her open palm. He did, after all, appreciate the service she had rendered him, and there was no point sending her away upset and a security risk. There were times in his life he had chosen to be unnecessarily cruel—to build his image, primarily, but also for sport when he'd been younger, because he could and because that power was still new to him, and heady. Now, however, there was no need, and so he didn't bother.

After she was gone, he had a bit of breakfast himself, and settled into his study to read. He'd discovered books rather late in life, and was finding them remarkably satisfying. He recalled from his surveillance of her apartment many of Sydney's favorites, and once he had settled in he had begun with those before moving on to his own, and then others. Usually he spent most of the day there in his study, taking a light lunch at two and tea at four (in the grandest of British traditions) before getting out for some exercise (a swim, usually, though not exclusively), and occasionally taking dinner in town. That afternoon, however, the man he had hired to run the household rung him at a quarter-past three to inform him he had been sent a message via one of the advertising spaces he kept rented for his use in several international newspapers.

The message, he discovered when he'd had copy of the paper sent up, was from Sydney.

He mulled it over, the idea of Sydney Bristow contacting him, for a long while. He considered it over dinner, and nearly sliced off his own finger while cutting the zucchini. He couldn't concentrate of the book that had the several nights previous interested him enough to keep him awake far later than his usual bedtime. He kept returning to the puzzle of Sydney's message: not the content of it, which was fairly straightforward in its request to see him, but its very fact.

Information, or rather the need for it, was the most likely motivation. But the CIA's method of collecting it usually involved guns and the liberal application of torture, ranging from insufferable boredom to Agent Vaughn's ineffective but occasionally inspired tactics, to which he had been privy those few weeks the man was convinced of Sark's complicity in Sydney Bristow's abduction. Sark did not intend to sign up for that particular activity again anytime soon—and Sydney knew it. Surely if she were attempting to trap him, she would not rely on such an inane and easily thwarted plan.

Presuming the message was from her at all. He had only assumed so, based on the codes she used—codes he had given to her only. But anyone, in theory, could have obtained them from her. Her father. Michael Vaughn. A raccoon, digging through the trash outside her house, had she been so irresponsible with the information. Of course, the latter two were hardly intelligent enough to know what to do with the information once they had it.

The situation could not be ignored, but it would take some care on his part.

His reply appeared in the next day's edition: _LAX. Your boarding pass and further instructions will be in box 562._

She looked . . . prim, he thought as the car approached the place in which she had been instructed to wait. She stood in a long black coat that covered the clothes beneath and flapped at the hem in the wind, hair pulled back neatly and bag clasped in both hands in front of her. Her shoes were sensible pumps, and he caught a hint of gray beneath the coat's collar.

The car in front of his stopped at the curb, the back door pulling even with where Sydney stood, and Sark's man exited the car to address her. The irritation on her distinctive features was visible even at a distance, and made him smile. But she acquiesced, which he had known she would, even allowing the man to assist her in stepping into the car, and both vehicles—his own and the one in which Sydney now rode—drove off towards his home.

He was pleased, he did not deny it, that it was indeed Sydney who had contacted him, and Sydney who had come. The sight of her, as always, was accompanied by that same shudder of anticipatory pleasure he used to associate with killing, in his younger days: neither wholly pleasant nor entirely welcome, but deeply primal in a manner which seized him so thoroughly, in a way that defied the definitions of pleasure and pain, attraction and revulsion, that he no longer cared for anything but experiencing that particular surge of feeling again.

_Addiction_, he thought, and shook his head ruefully. Thankfully, addiction was something he had years of practice keeping under control.

If Sydney was surprised when he stepped out of the car behind hers, she didn't show it.

"Sark," she greeted him coolly.

"Agent Bristow," he returned in kind. "I'm so pleased you could make it."

"Espionage has been slow." Sark's man took her bag from the trunk, and she made a reflexive move to take it before reigning herself in and turning back to him. "Thank you for seeing me."

He raised his eyebrows. "A thank you from Sydney Bristow? Sydney, I wouldn't have given you the information to contact me if I didn't intend on answering you."

"Still," she said, and shifted her gaze away from his uncomfortably.

The last time they had seen one another, she'd seduced him for his access card. The awareness of their recent history sparked hotly between them—he could tell by the slight stain of her neck and ears that she felt it as well—and so, he assumed, she was taking particular care to be kind. It didn't sting the way it should have—perhaps because the impulse behind it felt so genuine, and it was a curious thing for him to be receiving from her. He had known since it happened, as it happened, perhaps even before, that some part of her had wanted him, the same as some part of him desired her—she wasn't ruthless enough to have resorted to sleeping with him strictly to achieve her goals. But the idea that she would respond to him now with kindness, rather than lashing out stiffly, guiltily . . . he did not know what it meant, but it interested him immensely.

He gestured toward the door, left unobtrusively open. "Shall we? You must be tired. I've had a room made up for you."

"Yes," she said, and after a brief hesitation preceded him up the stairs and into his home.

Inside, he led her up the staircase and to the left. He was aware of her, silent behind him, just as he was of everything around him—a practiced awareness long internalized—but still he could deduce nothing from the details of that awareness: the increased rate of her breath from the stairs, the brush of her feet on the carpet, the scent of her hair, thick with oil from her long travel. When they reached the room he had prepared for her, he pushed open the door and took a step back to let her pass. But she only stood there.

"Agent Bristow?" he inquired, frowning.

Almost inaudibly, she asked, "Where do you sleep?"

He quite nearly choked. "I'm . . . sorry?"

Her eyes widened. "I need to go to bed," she said, and tried to push past him into the room, but he stopped her, closing his fingers around her arm.

"Sydney," he said, and the look in her eyes when she shifted them to his was oddly panicked. It startled him so much that he released her.

She took the opportunity to shut the door in his face.

It was only in retrospect that he realized her question might have been an entirely innocent one.

He didn't like what that said about his self-control. Or his sanity.


	6. Part Six

**Part Six**

Sydney stood in the shower stall, one hand braced against the wall. Her hair hung lankly on either side of her face, the water falling off of it in streams. She was jet-lagged, emotional, and standing in Sark's shower.

It was going to be hard for this day to get any worse.

It had to be the stress of the whole situation, Sydney justified. She was never jet-lagged anymore, not after this many years doing what she did. But that's what it felt like: she was weary all the way through.

Luckily, it appeared Sark's home had an unlimited supply of hot water. She was tempted to just stand there, in the water and heat and steam, until the world righted itself again on its own, but she had a job to do.

Reluctantly dry and wrapped perfunctorily in the most sinfully lush towel she'd ever had against her skin, she returned to her bedside and checked her cell phone. Still no calls.

Still no Vaughn.

She'd tried to get in touch with him several times before she'd left, and again from the airport. His phone always went straight to voicemail. She was frustrated, and angry, and heartsick. She'd needed to at least hear his voice, to remind herself that no matter what happened—no matter what stupid fight they'd had—he'd always be the center of her world. She needed desperately to reaffirm their suddenly tenuous connection.

Because now she was halfway around the world, with Sark. A man she couldn't look at without seeing . . . without remembering . . . . Without thinking of all the lines she'd crossed—the lines that _they'd_ crossed—and what it meant that it didn't horrify her to think of it at all. She wasn't proud of what she'd done. She wasn't proud of sleeping with one man while she was in love with someone else. But what should have shamed her most—that it was _Sark_, an enemy of her country, a man whose morality was marginal at best—left her feeling oddly indifferent. As if it couldn't hold up against the weight of everything else that was so terribly, horribly wrong in her life just then.

Because it was more than the sex that seeing him brought back. It was the reasons she'd been low enough to let him in, to be with him, to begin with. It was the pain, the feelings of betrayal and guilt that she'd worked so hard to get past. And it broke her down just a little bit more, taking her to that place she'd been the year before where she'd been empty and powerless and so drastically, unspeakably lonely that it made her physically cold to think of it.

If Vaughn would just _call_.

She dressed in light cotton slacks and a light blue button down, then slicked her hair back into a ponytail and tried to cover the circles under her eyes with makeup before going back downstairs in search of something bland to settle her stomach.

Sark was sitting at the bar in the kitchen—eating. He was also in casual slacks, paired with an unpretentious t-shirt, but somehow that startled her less than the sight of him consuming food. Like a normal human being. She'd seen him drink, of course—he'd had coffee at SD-6 as often as the rest of them. But this was . . . different. Unsettling.

"One moment, Sydney," he said without turning, "I'm nearly done with the chapter.

Of course he knew she was there.

She hung near the doorway, oddly hesitant to move closer. She had thought she could do this—contact him, come here—and things would be the same as they always had been between them: cool, professional, wary, with him goading her and her snapping at him. But she'd realized the instant she'd laid eyes on him that something had changed between them. Their uneasy alliance the year before—intimacies aside, she realized—had shifted their relationship just too far right of center for her to know what to do, how to act.

And this . . . this was his home. She'd been a guest (or a prisoner, depending on one's outlook) in a building he owned before, but this wasn't the same thing—this was a place he _lived_. This was a place he slept, and ate, and brushed his teeth. A place he sat and read in the middle of the afternoon. And he was letting her see this. See him. She wasn't sure what it meant—or it if meant anything at all. She'd never known Sark to be careless in anything, and this felt careless of him.

A few moments later he closed the book and turned to her, amused. "You could have come in; you didn't have to stay in the doorway."

She felt awkward, vulnerable. And she hated talking to him when she felt vulnerable. Not least because the last time she'd been vulnerable around him, they'd ended up in bed together, him fucking her from behind. Of course, she'd been drunk then. And also Lauren.

So she just said what she had, after all, come all this way to say: "My sister is missing."

To his credit, he didn't even blink. "Your sister. Nadia." He said the name carefully. "And that's why you're here?" He gestured belatedly to the stool beside him at the bar and, gingerly, she took it.

"We think she's been taken," she said and, after a deep breath, laid the whole situation out for him in as much detail as Jack had authorized her to. She explained the cookbook, the abandoned server, the leads Marshall had found, Albert Gonzales. "And his last known employer," she finished, "was you."

Sark had listened, surprisingly but not exactly uncharacteristically patient, as she'd spoken, and now he reached for his half-empty glass and took a drink thoughtfully while she clenched her hands and waited for his response. Finally, he said, "Isn't this a particularly weak lead to be following up on so avidly?"

It wasn't accusatory, merely mildly curious, but she tensed anyway. "It's what we have."

His mouth curved, and the glint in his eyes was dangerous. "There's no other reason for your being here?"

Cautiously, she asked, "What are you implying?"

"You have no . . . ulterior motive?" His hand came up and brushed the strands of hair, come loose from her ponytail, behind her ears, lingering at the skin there and the sensitive hollow of her neck.

She froze. _Oh God_. And abruptly his hand was gone and he was up and clearing his plate and cup to the sink.

She merely sat there, stunned.

"I don't think I can help you, Agent Bristow," he said calmly, his back to her as he turned the water on. It muffled the sound of his voice just slightly. "You're welcome to remain here, of course, until you can make arrangements to return home, but I have nothing useful to give you, I'm afraid."

"You have to," she said, voice tight and, to her ears, desperate. It felt as if all her faith, her _hope_, had drained from her body, leaving her trembling and shocked.

"Do I, Sydney?" Sark said, rinsing his cup and placing it in the rack, and turning finally back to her. "We owe each other nothing."

And all of a sudden, she was furious. She'd come to him plainly—she'd dropped the games, she'd forgone the threats and the scare tactics and the misrepresentation—because she'd _thought_ (God only knew why) that he could be a reasonable human being. He could have asked anything he'd wanted in return, but he hadn't even asked, he'd just said _no_.

"Fine," she snapped.

He had the nerve to look surprised. "Sydney—"

"I'll be gone by tomorrow afternoon."

And she left the room before he could respond.

Naturally, she couldn't get a hold of her father. So she booked her own flight back under the name Heather Stallings and called a cab to pick her up the next morning at seven. They didn't sound particularly reliable, but if their car didn't show up, she'd just steal one of Sark's. He had to have a car or two around there somewhere.

Vaughn wasn't answering his phone (still) either, and her anger at Sark—if she were honest, at the situation—expanded fluidly to encompass him as well. There was a message from Weiss, to check on her progress, but she didn't call him back. He'd find out soon enough how miserably she'd failed.

_God_. She sank down on the bed and bit the insides of her cheeks to stop herself from crying.

She had just started packing again when Sark knocked, and he entered before she could tell him not to.

"What?" she asked, stopping and folding her arms in a way that was more defensive than she'd meant it to be.

He smiled at her slightly, wryly. "I came to apologize," he said.

"Thanks, but no thanks," she snapped. She'd just folded up her nightclothes, and she turned to stuff them viciously into her bag.

"Your lack of manners," he said, clearly irritated, "never fails to astound me."

"_My_ lack of manners?" She stared at him incredulously. "Why did you even bother to knock?"

"This, if you hadn't noticed, is my _home_."

She rolled her eyes.

Waspishly, he asked, "Can you not at least _pretend_ to still consider me a threat? I could shoot you, you know."

"You're not going to shoot me."

He muttered something that could have been, "I might. The night's still young."

She turned stiffly back to her partially filled bag and stared at it unseeing. "Will you just leave me _alone_?"

Her voice sounded distressingly close to hysteria. He'd told her no and then he'd come to—what? Rub it in? Her sister, a woman she'd sacrificed two years of her life to protect, was missing, and she didn't have a back-up plan. Sark had been it, unless APO had found something while she was gone. And she doubted it. They would have called her.

"No, Sydney, I will not."

She laughed. It was short, and sharp, and depthlessly bitter. "Of course not. Because why should now be any different than the last six years?"

"Sydney," he said, "will you _listen_ to me a moment? I've changed my mind. I'll help you."

Even as she stared at him, she realized that whatever she'd been expecting, this wasn't it. She was genuinely speechless, her heart so full of hope she almost couldn't breathe.

"I'll help _you_," he clarified. "Not the CIA. I won't ask you to cut off contact with them—particularly as I know your father would likely hunt me down and gut me himself should I attempt to prevent you from checking in—but I will ask that you remain with me until our business is concluded, and that you refrain from passing any information on to your superiors unless you have first cleared it with me. Explicitly, my location, but there may be other intel better kept out of your employer's hands." He paused. "Do we have a deal?"

His terms were fair. She didn't like it, but they were. Honestly, it was almost _too_ good a deal, and she wondered what she was missing. In exchange for information and resources that could save her sister's life, he was asking for . . . what? Nothing, really. Not even restriction—just control. She could give that to him, at least for now.

She'd given it to him before.

"You're not going to like the company," she warned him.

He grimaced. "Believe me, Sydney. I'm quite aware."


	7. Part Seven

**Part Seven**

Vaughn was in the hallway, but the door was open and his voice carried clearly to where Nadia still sat, sore and bound to the same chair she'd occupied for the last two and a half days. Maybe longer . . . her internal clock was starting to fail, and she was in and out of consciousness so often thanks to whatever Vaughn kept injecting her with that she couldn't keep accurate track of the light.

"I know," he was saying. "I know, I'm sorry. I'm sorry! I would have called back sooner, but Mom isn't doing so well. No, she'll be fine, I just don't want to leave her while she's . . . . Wait, you're still with him? For how long?"

_Sydney_, she thought. _He's on the phone with Sydney_.

She tried to yell out, to scream her sister's name, but it came out muffled, indistinct—she was gagged. Vaughn shot her a surprised look, and moved out of earshot as she struggled. Tears began to slide down her face.

Her cheeks were still wet when Vaughn returned, crouched down, and unfastened the makeshift gag tied behind her head. He hesitated, seeing her tears, then carefully wiped them dry.

"Bastard," she said numbly.

"I was hoping to have it off before you woke up. It was just a precaution, in case . . . well, in case of what just happened. I had to call Sydney back." His face turned dark. "She's somewhere with Sark."

Even Nadia's outrage at and frustration with her own situation didn't match her shock. "She's . . . what?"

"She wouldn't tell me where. Damnit." He pushed back to his feet. "I hate that guy."

It didn't even matter that she was sitting there, the way he talked. He wasn't looking for participation, or response. He was just speaking. To fill the time. To fill the silence. She was beside the point. She hated it. She'd hated it when she was child, in the orphanage, when adults would come to look at her and the other children and comment on them as if they weren't standing there in front of them, eager and petrified (or cross, as Nadia always was, defiant of being chosen). And she hated it now just as much. Especially from Vaughn, who'd always done so much to make her feel welcome, to get her acclimated—for Sydney's sake, no doubt, but he'd done so just the same.

She spoke anyway, cautiously, because he was obviously agitated and he might tell her more now than he would have otherwise. She asked, "Because of your wife?"

His face, in profile, was pained, his voice soft. "And now Sydney's with him."

"Why?"

"She's looking for you."

"You know," she said quietly, a vicious twist to her words, "she wouldn't have chosen to make contact with him at all if you hadn't _kidnapped her sister_."

For one, bare moment, he looked at her—as if finally remembering, finally realizing, who she was, that they were really there and this was really real. Then, almost immediately, he looked away again.

But he kept talking.

"She calls out his name sometimes in her sleep. She claims it's nightmares, but . . . it reminds me of Lauren, and how she and Sark . . . ."

His fists were clenched at his sides, the tendons in his neck tight. Nadia would have felt sorry for him if he hadn't had her trussed up to a chair. She'd seen the way he and Sydney had been together since they had resumed their relationship. She hadn't had their past relationship to compare it to, but even to her, something had never seemed quite right. They were both desperate for one another, each reaching towards the other, but always without success. There was always so much between them, even when they were alone in a room. Whenever she had passed them, eating together as she left to go out, the kitchen always felt crowded.

She waited a few moments, letting him entangle himself further in memory, before asking, "Why would Sydney have gone to him?"

"Your cookbook was missing. The lead was a dead end, the way it should have been. Except for Sark."

_The cookbook_. The idea of it made her feel foolish, and shame washed over her. She'd been so pleased to have found it; she'd felt so capable, flushed with satisfaction. But it must have been put there for her to find. She wanted to ask what it had been used for—a tracking device? a bug that scrambled visual and auditory feeds?—but instead she said, "Isn't Sark my—Irina's man?"

Vaughn snorted. "Sark's anyone's man who will have him, as long as it helps him achieve his goals. The guy's a whore."

_And now he's whoring for Sydney. _Or, as Vaughn obviously feared, was it the other way around?

She wanted to strike out at him—physically, but verbally would do. It was the only way she could feel as if she maintained some measure of control. But implying that Sydney . . . that Sark . . . it would be too much. She knew it because she knew him. She had practically lived with him for months. And because of that, she also knew he had other weaknesses, ones that could be more satisfactorily exploited. So she said, with contempt, "Like you, for the woman who wanted me?"

Suddenly the pain was gone and fury flooded his features, cold and hard and as harsh as the stubble that shaded his cheeks. He gripped the back of the chair so hard the knuckles on both his hands were white, boxing her in as he leaned over her. "This isn't some game for me, the way it is for him, this is my _life_. I wouldn't be doing this if it weren't important."

"Because finding your ex-wife, that's much more important than my life, and your relationship with Sydney," she snapped, refusing to back down or shy away. His face was inches from her own, close enough for her to see the veins in the whites of his eyes, flushed from too much stress and too little sleep, and the fine lines around his mouth; she could have spit on him. Instead, she only held her ground, waiting for his next move, waiting for her chance.

Slowly, he seemed to come back to himself. The dilation lessened in his eyes, and his arms, she noticed, had begun to tremble—from exhaustion, not anger. She wondered exactly how long it had been since he had slept. It was so difficult, remembering not to be concerned for him. Remembering that here, now, they were not on the same side.

"She won't kill you." He was bleak as he moved away from her, picking up a candle from the floor and relighting it; the sun began to go back down and the two slim rectangular windows near the ceiling ceased to provide effective lighting.

It took her a moment to remember what he was responding to, the moment between them had been so intense. "How do you know?"

"She needs you. I've tried to find out why but she won't say."

"And I'm sure you tried really hard," she told him caustically, losing her own grip on her temper, on all her plans. He was too much in control again now for it to matter, regardless. She didn't have hope. All she had was her anger.

"Nadia," he said, then stopped. Realizing, she hoped, that he had given up the right to speak to her that way the moment he let her be taken. To speak to her as if pleading with her to understand, to forgive him. It wasn't, regardless, something she was willing to do.

"She'll be here in a few days," he said instead. "She'll want to see you. I'm only supposed to stay until she does. Then I get my information, and I go."

"And what do I get?" she asked.

"Don't ask that. I don't know."

"And that doesn't bother you?" she demanded. "Not even a little?"

"Of course it bothers me."

She did spit now; it fell just short of his shoes.

Whatever he would have done next, she would never know. His phone buzzed. He grimaced, looking down. "I have to take this. I'll be back later."

"I hope you trip and break your neck on the way out," she shouted after him. Then, once he was out of sight, she began struggling with her bonds again in earnest.

When that failed, as it always did, she willed herself back asleep, because it was better than worrying. And if Vaughn wasn't sleeping, the least she could do for herself was be well-rested, for the moment in which she could turn his distraction to her advantage.

When Nadia dreamed, she dreamed in black and white, like old photography stills, like surveillance videos, like ghosts of memories. And in the morning, she never remembered.

In her dream, she was lashed to a chair and she was screaming. Her eyes had rolled up in her head, and her body spasmed uncontrollably. Fire burned through her muscles, raced through her veins.

There was a distant sound of scratching, and a flare of light in her brain. And then . . . and then . . . .

Vaughn was holding her wrists tight behind her when she woke with a cry, his body oppressive over hers, the scent of male sweat overpowering her senses.

"Nadia, hey, it's okay." He released her slowly, and shifted backwards so that he was crouched on his knees in front of her, looking at her with earnest concern.

What was he . . . . Her surroundings came back to her in a rush. She wondered how long it would take before she stopped waking up expecting to be home in her own bed, Sydney asleep down the hall.

"It's okay?" she asked. Hysterical laughter caught in her throat, and she yanked her hands against her restraints in demonstration. "Do you honestly think any of this is okay?"

He winced. "I meant—"

"I know what you meant," she said. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply to excise the darkness that still clung to her waking mind.

"You were dreaming?"

"Go to hell."

She heard him stand. When he spoke, he had the audacity to sound injured. "Right. I'm sorry. You were thrashing. I just didn't want you to hurt yourself."

She turned her head sharply to one side, as if she could get further away from him, but of course she couldn't. She thought she'd been beyond the point at which the situation could shame her any further, but she'd been wrong. She hated that anyone had seen her like that, fresh out of one of the nightmares that had plagued her since she'd relocated to Los Angeles. It compounded the feelings those nightmares always left in their wake: the inexplicable betrayal, shame, helplessness. Inexplicable, because she couldn't remember a thing.

Vaughn cleared his throat. "I brought something for you to eat."

She hadn't had anything since she'd been taken but water. She hadn't wanted anything, at least at first, fear and anger and the lingering drugs nauseating her. But now—now, suddenly, she was hungry. Her stomach tightened at the smell, and she was shocked she hadn't noticed it before. Stew of some kind. Thick, and dark, and she wanted it desperately.

She looked at the bowl, she looked at Vaughn, and she said, with great dignity, "I'd prefer the chicken."

For a moment he just looked at her, as if measuring whether or not further attempts would be met with the same response. "Suit yourself," he said finally.

When he left, her defiance was a cold and unfulfilling comfort.


	8. Part Eight

**Part Eight**

Sydney Bristow was not an easy woman to be in love with.

She was, Sark reflected, the type of woman it was far safer and more satisfying to admire from afar. Everything about her encouraged this, in fact. In her presence, her hard edges were omnipresent, her shoulders square and hands clearly oversized, and at times she took on the appearance of nothing so much as a gangly colt. And yet, when recalled, she shone always with an exquisite, nearly wrenching beauty in which no one, not even her always-hypnotic mother, could hope to match her.

This paradox was not, however, the trouble (it was actually a fair part of her appeal). Nor was her ability to render one painfully unconscious should one's affections not elicit her favor, though her capacity in that area was certainly formidable, and not to be ignored. No, the trouble was her attitude. He supposed it might be different—a pleasure, even—had she felt some affection for him. As she did not, well, her company was . . . difficult. He found his appreciation of her both elicited and discouraged at nearly every turn. And it was beginning to give him a headache

Still. For better or for worse, she would be remaining in his company for the currently foreseeable future and, headaches aside, he could not imagine anything better. It had been that which had convinced him to assist her, in spite of the danger to himself and in spite of the limited help he believed he could offer—he would have been a fool to deny himself such an opportunity, and he was entirely through being anyone's fool, even his own. He had been tiring of relative retirement anyway, if he were honest with himself.

Over the next few days, the two of them worked nearly nonstop to find Sydney's sister. He put a request in to several of his contacts for word of Irina Derevko—reasoning that, though he doubted she was responsible, she would have been alerted by Jack if not by her own sources that her younger daughter was missing, and would have initiated her own search—while following up on the lead that had brought Sydney to him in the first place, Mr. Gonzales. Sydney worked whatever contacts she possessed through the CIA. It was silent but nearly companionable, he and Sydney both working on laptops across his breakfast table. She never thanked him for the coffee he brought her, but when she stood up for a refill, she always filled his cup as well.

Early on the second day, she glanced over at him as he sat back down at the table after having take a phone call—legitimate investment business not having to do with her—in the other room, and said, "Dad wants a status report."

"Then by all means," he said generously, "give him one."

"Right. 'Hi, Dad, we've got nothing, but you should see the view from Sark's place!'" She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and he was struck anew with the novelty of having her trust him enough to close her eyes in his presence.

"Ask him, while you're at it, if he's been in touch with his ex-wife."

Sydney's hands dropped, and she tensed visibly in her chair. "Mom? But can't you—"

"The last time I saw Irina," he interrupted smoothly, "was shortly after the last time you did—at which point I rendered her unconscious in order to assist you in stealing from her, an act which put her younger daughter in considerable danger. I presumed she would not want anything further to do with me."

"Probably not," Sydney conceded. But Jack Bristow had not been in contact with Irina—or so he claimed when Sydney asked. Sark had his doubts, though he kept them to himself.

Mid-afternoon on the third day, however, they had a breakthrough. The man through whom Sark had contracted Mr. Gonzales' services had recently passed the man's name onto another associate of his as well: Arvin Sloane.

"That son of a bitch," Sydney exploded when he gave her the news.

"Yes," he wasted no time in agreeing, "but the possibility of his involvement means we now have a place to start."

He could see the question clearly on her face before she realized. A chill descended over the table—a familiar chill, a Sydney trademark, the absence of which he was surprised he had not noticed sooner.

"You're still in contact with him," she accused.

Her eyes had narrowed in a manner that made him somewhat wary. Surely she understood the necessity of keeping on Arvin Sloane's good side; she had worked for the man for years. Also, she had chosen to work with many less than law-abiding individuals, Sark included—hardly a paragon of virtue by any definition, even his own—when circumstances recommended it; why begrudge Sark himself a similar flexibility?

"Correct."

"You work for him."

"No," he said patiently, feeling a headache coming on again, "I work for myself. Once in a while, I do Arvin a favor. One does not abandon this lifestyle entirely, unless one is looking for the most expedient way to one's grave. Particularly where Arvin Sloane is involved." He paused. "Or have you so quickly forgotten your own lessons where Arvin is concerned?"

He expected to be slapped for that, and he might even have deserved it, but instead she merely looked down. Perhaps too much had happened for Mr. Hecht to be the same trigger he had been once. But at least his pointed comment had managed to counteract her self-righteousness. Amusing, even attractive, as it might occasionally be, it wasn't helping them. And their task was daunting enough even without it.

Yet it concerned him that she hadn't responded at all. It wasn't like her. But when she raised her eyes to his and said, "I'd like to ask your professional opinion," he understood. She'd barely heard him at all; she'd been thinking of something else entirely.

She could, of course, have simply been crafting some particularly incisive cut-down, to which this line was only the cleverly concealed set-up, but he didn't sense that to be so. She had, to all appearances, simply changed the subject. How . . . novel.

"Of course," he said, and inclined his head as an indication that she proceed.

"Do you think . . . do you think Nadia was taken against her will?"

He raised his eyebrows. Well. This was new. "Is there something in particular that makes you think that she was not?"

"Not—" Her hesitation was at once both immensely tiresome and wonderfully appealing.

"You've already made the decision to tell me, Sydney," he chided her, sitting back in his chair and folding his arms. "You might as well follow through."

She gritted her teeth, no doubt biting back some choice comment or another, but continued. "There's nothing to indicate that she didn't leave of her own accord. And the fact that I didn't suspect it at all—the fact that it was so difficult a possibility for me to accept—"

"Makes you suspect it all the more," he finished.

"Exactly," she admitted, if reluctantly.

Hers, he reflected, was not a family that engendered trust; he imagined it must seem a blessing to her that she had as few living relations as she did.

He attempted to recall whether he had trusted his own family, before Irina took him in. He had been an only child, but—perhaps his mother, once. Certainly not his father. Even as the man's face flickered across his mind, he reigned himself in tighter. Even in death Andrian Lazarey's hold on him remained. Not absolute, but foundational.

"I'll contact Sloane," he said, as much to distract himself from his own thoughts as to answer her question, "and with any luck at all, we shall find out soon enough, one way or the other."

"One way or the other," Sydney repeated. Then she tried to smile. "If you don't mind, I thought I'd take a walk, see if the fresh air will clear my head."

It was almost charming the way she offered him a polite excuse, the way she would have Mr. Tippin, or Agent Weiss, or any other young man of her acquaintance. He chose not to be offended, but rather delighted, that she should offer him such a courtesy.

"There's a pool out back," he offered, "if a swim is more to your taste."

"I—didn't bring a suit."

Though the idea of Sydney Bristow swimming nude in his pool was immensely appealing— "You'll be able to find something suitable in the dressing rooms, I'm sure. Try the top drawer."

She nodded, gave him another small smile, and headed for the back of the house, leaving him alone at the table with the lingering scent of her shampoo and a rather bittersweet sense of longing. Then he walked over to the kitchen, pulled an auxiliary cell phone from the back of the silverware drawer, and dialed Arvin Sloane.

-

The sound of her arms entering the water as she stroked lulled Sydney into a space in which her only thoughts concerned her form and the rhythm of her kicking, the steady lapping of the water against the wall closest to her, the distant hum of the expensive greenhouse lights nurturing the plants at the far corner of the pool by the waterfall. It was a welcome distraction from thoughts of Nadia, and Sloane, and her mother—her whole fucked-up family. God, she was tired of this. Not knowing who to trust. Not being able to believe anything _anyone_ said. Nothing felt real anymore, except for this: the movement of her body, the cool cushion of the water as she moved silently through it.

She didn't want to think about the fight she'd had with Vaughn when he'd finally called her back the night before, either. Not the suspicion in his voice, or the defensiveness in her own. He always overreacted now where Sark was concerned—it was exactly why she hadn't mentioned her earlier run-in with him to begin with—and this had been no different. He'd wanted to know why she was still there: what Sark had said, what he had promised, what he knew. He'd barely even asked how she was. They'd just fought. And she'd hung up even more angry than before.

How had things gotten so strained between them?

She was just completing her fifteenth lap when she looked up to find Sark crouched on the side of the pool, waiting for her. He stood as she approached. There was a towel draped over one of his shoulders. He could have passed for an elementary school swim coach, standing there so patiently.

She braced her hands on the cement side and pulled herself out, taking the towel he offered silently. She ignored the leisurely appraisal Sark gave her dripping body—she wasn't even in anything provocative, just a serviceable maroon racerback tank suit—and began toweling her hair dry.

He informed her, "I have a meet with Sloane."

She wrapped the towel securely around her waist and met his eyes. "I'm coming with you."

"Naturally," he said.


	9. Part Nine

**Part Nine**

"You have a visitor," Vaughn told Nadia.

He was crouched beside her, unfastening the cuffs from her hands one at a time and rubbing the life back into them gently, his thumbs circling with a pressure just short of painful. Her fingers tingled as the blood started to lift from them, circulation reestablished, and she peered at Vaughn blearily, feeling sluggish. More sluggish than usual. She shook her head back and forth, the hair falling across her face and tickling her neck and shoulders. It didn't help.

"I've given you a drug to slow your reflexes, so you won't be able to escape. Trust me, it's not worth trying."

"Where are we going?" she asked. The words stuck slightly in her mouth, and came out slurred. Her tongue was thick. She licked her lips and swallowed hard.

"Not far. We aren't leaving the building."

Her wrists finally freed, he moved to her ankles, releasing one and then the other. She stared at the top of his dark head as he worked. The intensity of her emotion towards him had slaked off this last day or so, the futility of it finally sinking in and the stress of keeping it up finally becoming too much. Now, with it muted even further by the drugs, she felt curiously indifferent.

"Is the woman who hired you here?"

"Yes," Vaughn said, helping her to stand.

If she were in any better shape, she would have pretended more weakness than she felt, to catch him off guard and fight her way out—but she wouldn't make it three uncontested steps on her own, in her current state, much less past the half-dozen armed guards she estimated to be currently on duty. She'd counted their footsteps as they passed the doorway (when she was awake), listened for voices during shift changes, given those voices (her captors) names. It was no use to her now, not if she was being moved, not if Vaughn's employer had arrived and all the rules had changed, but it wasn't as if there had been a more productive way to spend her time.

She said, "Then you'll be leaving soon."

"Yes," he said again.

The idea of his absence would have panicked her if her mind hadn't been so dulled, her body so lethargic. Without Vaughn there she would be totally alone. Again. The way she felt as if she'd always been. As much as she hated him—for doing this, for bringing her to this place—he was also the thing that kept her sane, that reminded her of the place that had become her home, the people she loved: Sydney, and Weiss, and even Jack. The people who would come for her. With Vaughn gone, she was afraid she would forget. It would be so easy to forget. She'd lived so long without anyone. . . .

Vaughn helped her along, arm steady and impersonal around her waist, and she couldn't help but be grateful for it. The support was negligible, but it was there—it meant he cared, if only a little, if only enough to not want to see her fall. He could have dragged her. Lesser men would have taken their frustration out on her, yanked her along with no regard for her at all. He took care with her. He kept the pace manageable. He let her retain what little of her dignity she had left to keep. He looked only grim, not angry, and because of what (she supposed) was to come, not because of her.

She was grateful as well that something was finally happening—grateful she would get to see the woman behind all this, to know her enemy. She needed something, someone, concrete to fight, if only in her head. Vaughn was too familiar, and too distant. His reasons for being there had nothing to do with her. And while that made her angry (angry in a way she remembered but couldn't quite access right now, not with her head swimming the way it was), it didn't make her strong. This would make her strong.

Or it would make her dead.

The light intensified as they approached an end to the hall they were in. It emanated from a partially opened door, reaching toward them, straining into the darkness they walked through.

"There?" she asked, and while he didn't answer, it didn't matter. It drew her, inexorably.

Her fate. Her death?

She picked up her head as well as she was able, squared shoulders that had never felt so delicate and narrow as they did in this moment, and willed herself to meet whatever lay behind the door head on. _Like Sydney would_, she thought. But the dread that whispered inside every bone of her body built with every step, and by the time Vaughn reached out to push it open, everything inside her was screaming.

_Go back!_

But she couldn't. Her body wouldn't comply. The drugs, and Vaughn's escort, wouldn't let it. The drug's influence was starting to wane, but not enough to make a difference, not yet.

Her eyes adjusted slowly to her surroundings, the white haze resolving itself into recognizable shapes and shadows. It wasn't that the high-ceilinged warehouse space was so brightly lit, but that the place she'd come from—the place she'd been for what could have been forever—had been, this time of day, nearly black.

There were two figures, a man and a woman, at the far side of the room. The woman sat with unconscious elegance and understated command on one side of a long, narrow table. The man, standing, had leaned across, palms flat on the top of it. His stiffness spoke of disagreement, perhaps even anger.

Then the man turned, and everything—the tall rows of empty warehouse shelves, Vaughn at her side, even her own weariness and nausea and fear—fell away.

Arvin Sloane. Walking towards her, a look of such pure joy on his face that she didn't know what to think—of him, of any of this.

"Nadia," he said, "my daughter! Oh, Nadia . . . ."

Vaughn's arm fell away and she stumbled into her father's ecstatic embrace, bracing herself on his shoulders for support. His tears were wet on her cheek. This was her father. Her father. And he was happy to see her. She'd thought . . . after what Sydney had told her, about the disk, she'd assumed he wouldn't . . . .

She lay her cheek on his shoulder, closed her eyes and choked back a sob as he held her for a long, unbearably perfect moment.

"Come," he said when he released her, smiling at her—an ache on his face so sweet she almost cried too.

He led her with nearly exaggerated care to the table, where Vaughn was already standing, his back to them. He was speaking to the woman—"I delivered my part of the bargain"—and his body blocked her face; his words were terse and his voice oddly low. Everything about his body language communicated his discomfort, his loathing. She thought, as she leaned on her father's arm, that if he had been free to do so, Vaughn would have physically recoiled.

Who was this woman, Nadia wondered, that he should have such a reaction to her? Or was it only the act she had coerced him to perform, Nadia's kidnapping, that elicited such a response? He had forfeited Nadia's sympathy either way.

The woman extended one arm, a paper folded in her slender, long-fingered hand, and Vaughn took it. Then he stepped away, and the woman's face was revealed.

Her father caught her as her legs gave out beneath her. She felt the hard plastic of a chair at the back of her awkwardly bent legs; she sank into the seat. She couldn't stop staring, couldn't stop trembling. Sofia, the woman who had cared for her as a child at the orphanage in San Telmo, the closest thing Nadia had ever had to a mother, smiled tenderly.

"My Nadia," she greeted her, opening her arms in a gesture of welcome.

Nadia looked instinctively, desperately, to Vaughn. He was responsible for this, he could explain it to her. He would know what was happening here, and why she was here at this table with the father she had never known and the woman she had always wished to belong to. But he had retreated already to a far corner, head down, voice just too low for her to make out the words. One hand held the cell phone up to his ear. The other held, unfolded, the sheet Sofia had given him. . . . _my part of the bargain_ . . . .

She turned her head back to the woman sitting across from her, then up to her father, standing just behind her and to her right.

"It's a lot to take in," her father said, and squeezed her shoulder. "I'll get you something to drink."

She wanted to protest, to keep him there—her hand went to where his had lay on her shoulder, and her fingers failed to grip his as he moved away—but she was having trouble speaking again, remembering how to use the muscles in her throat to make the sounds she desperately needed to make. He turned at the door, and smiled at her, tears visible in his eyes even at this distance, and then she was left alone with Sofia.

Sofia—who made her think of empanadas, of warmth, of safety—whose arms had been her shelter so many nights—whose steadfast faith in her had been the only thing that kept her from becoming the kind of person she now worked, with APO, to stop.

"How—" Nadia began tentatively. "Sofia, I don't understand."

"I know," Sofia said, and reached across to take Nadia's hands.

Nadia gripped them as tightly as she could, barely holding on. Sofia. The woman Vaughn had been waiting for. The woman who had her kidnapped.

No. Impossible. Wasn't it? She couldn't think. Her mind was still numb. But less from the drugs now than the shock.

"Oh, my Nadia, how I missed you! You've grown up to be so beautiful. . . ."

Her hair was unwashed, her skin desperately greasy, she had bruises on her wrists and ankles, and she'd been in the same drawstring cotton pajama pants and thin tank for four days. Hysterical laughter bubbled up in her throat, but it didn't quite break the surface.

"Just as I knew you would." Sofia smiled once again, so proudly, and Nadia just wanted to sob and collapse into her arms, to feel safe and loved and taken care of the way she hadn't since she was eight years old.

But she didn't have the opportunity.

"Step away from Miss Santos, please."

Nadia pulled her head around to the source of the voice and found it instantly. The speaker had come in through the door and was approaching them slowly in a smooth arc to the right, gun poised, keeping them clearly within his line of sight. She recognized him from briefings, and also, somehow, from what little her sister had said of him: the disdainful mouth, the alert blue eyes, the slow arrogant walk.

Julian Sark.

And where Sark was—

Sydney should be, too.

Desperately, hope unfurling painfully bright in her chest, Nadia's eyes flew behind him, heedless of the weapon trained in her direction, fixing her gaze on the doorway, the open door, the darkness beyond.

But there was no one there.


	10. Part Ten

**Part Ten**

_Seven hours earlier . . ._

_Nightclubs_, Sydney thought with a sigh as she glanced out into the squirming press of scantily-clad late-night revelers, _always nightclubs_.

When she'd first started running missions for SD-6, the spy world's propensity for doing business in nightclubs had seemed glamorous, exciting, sexy—though largely because, as a not-very-social college student just barely of legal drinking age, she hadn't been in many. Now it just annoyed her. They were crowded, badly-lit and mostly just tacky. Those first two, of course, would work to her advantage this time.

"I used to meet Sanko here," Sark murmured as he took a drink and surveyed the room from his seat at the bar.

"I'm touched you've chosen to share," Sydney replied acidly.

She was making a point of not noticing him beside her, but she'd have done that even if it weren't part of their security measures. Or at least she could have before.

He smiled into his cup. "Ah, Sydney, I've missed you."

She was fairly certain she was supposed to take offense at that—or at least should have, just on principle—but she couldn't muster up the energy. She settled for taking a long, cover-sanctioned swallow of her Cosmo—her mission-with-Sark drink of choice, apparently—and hoping he'd take her lack of answer as intentional.

Sark wore charcoal slacks, and a muted olive dress shirt. ("You look good," she'd told him neutrally when he'd emerged from the airplane bathroom. His mouth had merely quirked. "I'm so glad you think so.") She was in low-slung white jeans and a bronze-sheened drape-necked tank, a gold belly chain fastened across her midsection. She'd chosen the latter for its ability to double as a garrote in a pinch. They didn't look as if they'd come in together—which was, of course, the point. They were mismatched. She could sit next to him and not necessarily be expected to make a play, no matter how attractive he was. She could ignore him with impunity.

"I'd recommend the second balcony," Sark said as she smiled for a man across the bar. He had a sulky well-dressed girl already on his arm—a safe mark, relatively. "You'll have a clear view of our table from the railing."

"And my surround sound?"

"Our transmitters have already been activated." He lifted his arm to expose the glint of his cufflinks.

"Great." She tossed the rest of her drink back and signaled the bartender for a second. She gave him a flirty wink before sliding off her bar stool—and, as she turned, bumped her hip against Sark's long, trim thigh.

His glance flickered up at her, and she smiled at him sweetly. "Pardon moi," she simpered, laying a hand on his shoulder before sashaying off through the crowd. A reason for him to watch her. A way for him to be sure he knew what her position would be.

She dropped the drink off at a table by the stairs, and activated her own electronics as she climbed.

"Still with me?" she asked, and he returned, "Most assuredly." The sound as always was so close, so clear, that it seemed as if he were standing right behind her. "The bartender, incidentally, had some quite complimentary things to say about your appearance in those pants. Colorful man. It nearly moved me to defend your honor."

"You're talking a lot for someone who's not supposed to be drawing attention to himself," she said, but she was smiling.

It was wrong to be smiling while her sister was missing, but she was. It was something about the act of taking on an alias—sometimes it was hard to remember even the mission specs, much less the concerns of her own life. Being with Sark made it twice as surreal, as if she were twice removed from herself, or at least who she should be.

She flirted her way airily up the staircase, following the raising as it circled up and around the main floor, until she reached the place Sark had suggested—from there, she had an excellent view of the door as well as a large subsection of the tables scattered throughout the main area.

She said, "I'm in place."

"Excellent timing," he replied, the murmur of his voice intimate in her ear as he raised a hand to the man just coming through the door. "Arvin's here."

As she watched, the two clasped hands, and Sloane gripped Sark companionably on the shoulder in greeting, a gesture intended to intimate comradeship and closeness. After the barest of hesitations, Sark did the same.

She recalled a similar scene between Sark and Khasinau, the night Sark had betrayed SD-6—she'd watched from the wings of the small stage, waiting for her cue—and for a moment she remembered to wonder if he was doing the same to her. But no, he'd chosen this, working with her. There'd been no coercion. If he were going to double cross her, it wouldn't be like this. It wouldn't be for Sloane, and it particularly wouldn't be yet. Because whatever he'd hoped to get from agreeing to help her—and he was Sark, so he had to be hoping for something—he couldn't have gotten already.

Also, she'd seen him place the tracker on the shoulder of Sloane's sport coat.

"Shall we?" Sark suggested, gesturing to a table clearly in Sydney's line of sight, and she thought, _Good boy_, as the two men sat and ordered drinks.

Sloane's voice, faint but still audible, asked, "Have you given any more thought to my offer?"

"I have," Sark said, and Sydney couldn't help narrowing her eyes, wondering what exactly Sloane's offer had been. She hadn't expected full disclosure from Sark, but this at least seemed like something he should have mentioned. "I regret to say my first answer still stands."

"You should reconsider," Sloane said, the easy, oily arrogance in his tone familiar. "An intelligent young man like yourself I'm sure has noticed the signs, and having worked for Irina, you would have recognized them for what they are."

_Signs?_ Sydney wondered.

"That is true," Sark acknowledged. "However, I have also noticed that involvement with Rambaldi has lead to nothing but trouble for me. I enjoy an occasional coming out of retirement, granted, but I do not wish to return, particularly to the search, full time."

_Rambaldi_. It had been a long time since she'd been forced to listen to Sloane talk about Rambaldi. She hadn't missed it. Not the glimmer of madness in his eyes (which she could not see from her perch above them but could picture all too well), not the tremble of awe in his voice. Not, either, the way his gaze had always fixed on her as a kind of messiah.

"And yet you used the number I'd given you for that reason." Sloane's expression was deceptively mild.

"If you'd given me another," Sark said, "I'd have been happy to use it instead."

Sloane took a sip from his tumbler, swallowed, and then made a face as if the drink had turned (or Sark had)—his eyes squinted, his teeth showed as he winced. "Where did you find this place?" he asked.

"An old . . . colleague of mine used to meet me here."

"Used to," Sloane repeated, as if rolling the answer around in his mind. "Indeed. Tell me, Julian, what did you call me for, then?"

Sark cleared his throat, briefly raising a loose fist politely to his mouth. "While I do not desire a full return to my previous manner of employment, I do, as I said, enjoy an occasional vacation from retirement. Quite frankly?" Though Sydney could not see his face, she could easily picture the grimace he would use to punctuate his words. "I'm bored."

This was the key moment, the lie on which the rest of their plans hinged. If Sloane bought it, odds were they would succeed. If he didn't, they had a few embedded alternatives (including tranq-ing him, questioning him, then turning him over the CIA—unfortunately a last resort, considering her personal goals since she had last seen him), but the likelihood of their success was low. He had to believe Sark was here for nothing but his own amusement. Because a suspicious Sloane was one they'd have no hope of tracking, one from whom they would learn nothing they could use.

Despite the tension, so thick it was nearly audible, both men looked perfectly at ease, perfectly casual—Sark, perhaps, more than Sloane. But of course, Sloane had nothing to prove, no one to convince.

Well," Sloane said. "There is one thing I could use some assistance with. I'll have to check on a few things first, naturally."

"Splendid." She saw Sark's hand reach for his glass and take a sip—a concession, breaking eye contact first. "I'll look forward to receiving the details."

"Yes," Sloane murmured, seeming momentarily far away. He looked up then, taking a wide sweep of the club, and Sydney tensed but it was routine, unconscious on his part, nothing to concern her. He didn't pause. He asked Sark, "How should I get in touch with you?"

Sark slid his hand into his inside jacket pocket—she could tell by the movement of his elbow and shoulder, the pull of the fabric between his shoulder blades, and because they had outlined the plan for this ahead of time—and held a card out. "This number. Day or night."

"I'd expect nothing less." Sloane smiled, crinkling at the eyes, and stood. He extended his hand to shake, and Sark took it as he, too, got to his feet. "A pleasure, Mr. Sark, as always."

"For myself as well."

Sydney snorted in laughter from the second balcony. "You are such an ass-kisser," she told him as Sloane walked away.

"Meet me out back in two minutes," Sark said in reply, startling her. He had already begun to make his way through the ever-thickening crowd.

"Got it," she said automatically, though she was frowning, and started immediately down the steps. She was quick, but he was already pacing erratically, waiting for her, when she pushed open the alleyway door.

"What?" she asked, descending the three concrete stairs and approaching him cautiously.

"The signs Sloane mentioned? That he intimated I would recognize? I hadn't." His eyes were large and—worried. Deep-down, end-of-the-world worried. She hadn't even imagined he could look that way. He almost looked scared. "I do now."

"And?"

"Rambaldi. Naturally." His face was drawn. "There's been movement, lately, among the more serious of his followers. Preparations, one might be tempted to say. For Rambaldi's second coming."

Sydney gritted her teeth, and managed only by extraordinary force of will to keep herself from rolling her eyes. But Sark barely looked at her. She didn't know why she'd expended the effort anyway.

"Your sister, the Passenger, is to be his vessel."

"Old news," Sydney said. She crossed her arms. "What else do you have?"

"Sloane has her. Or at least access to her. He must. He was too unconcerned, knowing the signs, not to." Sark's eyes were narrowed, his gaze far away as he rubbed his lower lip with his thumb. "But then why attempt to sway me to his side? And why give up so easily?"

Sydney offered, "Maybe he could tell you weren't going to bite."

"Perhaps. But why approach _me_ to begin with? I'm good, but I'm not _that_ good. And I've hardly proved a particularly loyal lieutenant in the past. What about me in particular would cause him to covet my assistance?"

Before Sydney could interrupt his musing and get him to the point—not that she didn't appreciate the impromptu foray into the inner workings of Sark's brain—the door behind Sark opened, its bottom scraping on the concrete.

Their eyes locked, and even as she told herself there were far, far better solutions than this, she dropped to her knees, raked her hands through her own hair and then slid them around his hips to splay her fingers across his ass. Which was just as firm as she'd remembered.

She'd thought she and Sark had been on the same wavelength, but he seemed astonished. Not offended, though. She couldn't help but, in her current position, notice that he had become suddenly, emphatically hard. It was reassuring.

"Hey!" The person behind the door's opening was a disgruntled, pudgy man with a sweat-stained shirt and a mealy, disagreeable face. Apron tied around his waist. Kitchen worker. The building next door must have been a restaurant. "Y'know the rules. No soliciting," he scolded, "unless the boss is getting a cut."

"Oh," Sydney said with a breathy laugh, poking her head out from behind Sark's hip and hoping the hard bite she'd administered to her lower lip had made it visibly swollen, "I'm not getting paid."

The man snorted, and the door banged closed behind him, leaving Sydney and Sark alone again.

Silently, he offered his hand to help her up off the ground. She took it.

Standing, she cleared her throat and tried to push her back into some kind of respectable shape with her hands, feeling awkward. She had grime stains on the knees of her slacks. "So you think Sloane has Nadia."

"Yes. And thanks to the disc we provided him with last year, we can also assume he has the serum that will allow your sister to channel Rambaldi." His voice was tighter than it had been before they'd been interrupted, and she felt warmth rush into her cheeks.

_Should have thought that through a little better_, she thought, but every other scenario she'd been able to come up with involved kissing him, and she wasn't . . . she couldn't . . . . It wasn't a good idea. This hadn't been either, but there were only so many things for a woman and man to be doing in an alley outside a nightclub. And you always went for the simplest, most believable scenario; it was Spy 101. She had nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing to apologize for. And certainly nothing to feel guilty about.

She asked, "So we track Sloane?"

"We track Sloane," he confirmed. "And if we're very, _very_ lucky, he'll lead us right to her."

"And if we're not?"

He looked at her for a long moment. And then he said, "Come on. The equipment's in the car."


	11. Part Eleven

**Part Eleven**

Sark expression was grim, his gun pointed at Sofia's heart.

"What do you want?" Sofia hissed as she stood slowly, backing away from the table. Nadia looked back and forth between her and the man moving towards them, not daring to do more. At full strength she might try and take him out. Or disarm Sofia. She was having trouble remembering who she was supposed to be fighting. But it didn't matter, because she was still weak, her mind still fogged. Everything she did was still just a beat too slow.

"Many things," Sark said conversationally. "I have most of them already, however. Or do you mean in this specific instance? I'm here for Miss Santos."

"It won't matter." Nadia saw a glint of—was that a gun?—at the waistband of Sofia's pantsuit. Nadia had never seen her in a pantsuit before. At the orphanage she'd always worn skirts, long, sweeping ones that Nadia had loved for the way they felt under her small hands and the sound they made as Sofia walked by each child's bed at night, checking to see they were safe, and sleeping. "She's worthless without the formula."

"Perhaps so," he replied. He smiled slightly. "But her sister misses her."

And then everything happened at once. There was movement at the door, and Sark shifted his attention, just slightly, and Sofia drew the gun and pulled the trigger. A woman's voice cried out, "_Sark_!" Nadia looked—it was Sydney, gun drawn. There was a second shot, and Sofia staggered, hit, and fell.

Nadia screamed.

She went down hard on her knees by Sofia's prone, gasping body, pressing her shaking hands against the wound. Nothing mattered, in that moment, but Sofia as the blood spread from her breastbone, staining her white shirt and darkening the jacket's lapels. But Sofia was laughing. Coughing up blood, and laughing, and there was something maniacal in her eyes as she reached out for Nadia, put one blood-smeared hand to Nadia's cheek. There was so much blood.

"My darling," she rasped, and her body was wracked with spasms.

Sofia was dying. Right in front of Nadia's eyes, practically in her arms. Nadia had seen it—caused it—enough times to know.

"My Nadia . . . you must finish . . . ."

There was movement behind her, at the door, coming towards her, shouting. She couldn't take her eyes from Sofia's face.

"Please, Sofia," Nadia begged, tears starting. Her hands were clumsy; she couldn't think. What should she do? She didn't know what to do. "Please!"

"Finish my work," Sofia said, and coughing racked her body again. "Nadia. Promise me."

"What work? Oh, God. Don't—don't move too much, I'll get help, Sydney won't let you die—"

"Promise me!" Sofia's grip on her arm was tight, nails biting into her skin.

"I- I promise," Nadia whispered, and Sofia's hand fell . . . and as Nadia lifted one trembling, blood-stained hand to press the hair back from Sofia's forehead, she realized—Sofia was dead.

A voice behind her: "Get her away from there."

"No." Her voice was hoarse, barely audible, choked in her throat.

The word echoed in the hollow where her thoughts should have been. She scrambled back, away. Her hand hit Sofia's abandoned gun.

"No," Nadia screamed. _They didn't understand_. Blinded by tears, shaking, she swung the gun up and towards the sound. She'd stop them—she wouldn't go, they couldn't make her. Her hands were slick with Sofia's blood, and her finger . . . her finger slipped . . . it was the only explanation, because she would never have meant . . . .

The gun fired.

And only then, as the shock of it cleared her head, did she recognize the voice that had spoken, and understand what she'd just done.

"Oh, God," she gasped.

She'd lost feeling in her arm but her knuckles were white, fingers clenched around the gun, which looked alien to her, repulsive. She stared at it with rising horror.

Weiss lay on the ground, stunned look on his face, hands pressed against his stomach.

The gun dropped with a clatter.

Nausea overwhelmed her, and she nearly vomited there, on the floor, already slick with blood. But then she saw Vaughn moving, close to the wall, headed for the door, and everything in her rose up and rebelled. _No_. Her eyes focused on the man closest to her, approaching cautiously, hands raised—she lashed out with the palm of her hand, caught him on the breast bone. She drove her elbow into a second man's nose, and ran.

They hadn't been expecting this—she'd been a prisoner, of course; why would they have?—and so she was to the door, through it, almost before they realized what she was doing. She caught sight of Vaughn ahead of her as he turned the corner, and she pushed herself harder, breath sawing in her lungs. She couldn't lose him.

She came around a corner and was slammed back against the wall with Vaughn's gun against her temple. His chest rose faster than normal, but he was perfectly in control. His eyes widened, but the muzzle of the gun didn't waver, when he saw who she was.

"Nadia."

"You're running," she said, raising her head to look at him.

He glanced briefly down, but she didn't take advantage of it. That wasn't what she was after. "I can't let them take me in. Even if they release me, it would never be in time."

_In time for what?_ She couldn't stop to ask. There wasn't time. Not now, not yet. She said instead, chin still lifted, "Then you're taking me with you."

He lowered the gun and stepped back. "Nadia, go back."

She tensed. "No."

"You're safe now. Sydney—" His face spasmed in pain, and she thought for one tight, twisted moment that he might break entirely. "Sydney's here. She'll get you home."

She had to play this right. His guilt. Her vulnerability. Precise timing. "You don't get to tell me what to do anymore," she told him. "I'm not tied up."

He scowled. "You wouldn't let me tell you what to do when you _were_ tied up."

There was a commotion behind them—voices, "This way!", and then footsteps headed down another hall. He looked anxiously back the way she had come, but she kept her eyes on him. She said, "I'll call them. If you don't take me with you, I'll scream."

His eyes flashed, indecision crossing his face quickly but markedly, then he holstered the gun. "Fine. But we have to go _now_."

He seized her arm and pulled them both back into motion. She stumbled every few steps, weak from her inactivity, but kept up as they skidded around unfamiliar corners and ran full out for what Nadia had to assume was the exit.

_What are you doing?_ some part of her was screaming, but she didn't listen. Right now, Vaughn was her best chance of finding out why Sofia had needed her, what she was working on, how she knew Nadia's father. And she'd promised Sofia, though she wasn't deluded enough to believe a promise from Sofia was worth as much, not now that she knew Sofia had been behind this. So where Vaughn went, she'd go, too. She knew she couldn't trust him now, so she wouldn't make the mistake of turning her back on him. He wasn't cruel, she knew. But he wasn't the same man she'd thought he was either: good and true, her sister's boy scout. He was something else, something dangerous, something unknown.

She'd take her chances.

They reached another door at the end of a corridor, and Vaughn stopped. He dropped to his knees and pulled a long rectangular case from his inside jacket pocket.

"What are you doing?" she asked. She put a hand the door and pushed; it gave. "The door's unlocked."

"Hold on," he said. Propping the door open with his knee, he took a strip of metal from the case, ripped off a thin plastic covering and pressed it to the doorframe, over the lock.

Ten more seconds and they would have been free. Ten more seconds and their escape would have been easy, and clear. She wasn't watching behind them as she should have been, and that was her fault. But it was Vaughn who carried the weight of the blame. For putting them in the position they were in to begin with. And for what he did next.

Nadia found her hands twisted again behind her back, and Vaughn's gun to the back of her head, as Sydney appeared around the corner.

"Nadia!" Sydney cried as she saw her.

And only then, Nadia imagined, she must have seen, and recognized, the man who held Nadia captive.

Sydney's gun arm faltered. "Vaughn?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

"Put the gun down," he said evenly, impersonally, and Nadia nearly saw Sydney's heart break.

Slowly, Sydney's arm lowered the rest of the way.

Eyes on Sydney, Vaughn pushed the door he'd never let close open further with his heel, then walked them backwards through it.

"You—" Sydney managed hoarsely. "You son of a—"

Vaughn kicked the door closed.

Just before metal met metal, sparking where Vaughn's earlier metal strip met the frame of the door and fusing the two together, Nadia saw her sister move for the handle. She was too close, she'd be hurt—the heat from the chemical reaction, the energy flying from it—another person Nadia loved hurt, because of Nadia, because of her mistakes—

"We don't have time," Vaughn said.

Time for what? Time to explain? Time to check and make sure Sydney hadn't been hurt? Or time to feel bad about it?

"Come on."

Nadia turned her gaze away from the door, and followed.

Author's Note: Many thanks to people-alwayz-leave for reviewing!!


	12. Part Twelve

**Part Twelve**

Jack Bristow concluded the conversation curtly, and snapped his cell phone closed. Eric Weiss was alive, if in critical condition. Too unstable to transport to the APO facilities in L.A. He would have to remain where he was for the time being. Did Agent Weiss have family? Close friends, other than Sydney and Michael Vaughn? Jack didn't know. He had records back at the office, which he could access if he were able to obtain a secure terminal, but that was low on his priority list at the moment. Sydney would know who would need to be called, if anyone. But Sydney was . . . distracted.

At that moment, Sydney was standing stiff and silent in the safe house's observation room, behind a one-way mirror. On the other side, mid-interrogation (too mild for Jack's taste, but that was why he had assigned the task to someone other than himself), was Arvin Sloane. Beside Sydney, seated, was Julian Sark, watching Arvin with similar intensity, eyes hooded like a particularly venomous snake's.

Jack had not intended to allow Sark access to the observation area, nor the safe house at all, but he had been with Sydney, and they would be disposing of the place after this op anyway. Knowing its location would be useless.

Jack opened the door and stepped back inside the room. Sydney's gaze flickered to him briefly before returning to the man on the other side of the glass, and after closing the door carefully behind him he joined her.

"I saw Sydney up on the balcony," Sloane was saying. "I suspected Sark had contacted me for some reason other than the one he claimed, but seeing her confirmed it."

"Yet you made no effort to keep Agent Bristow and Julian Sark from following you."

"No. I followed routine safety protocols, but I knew them both to be fully capable of tracking me despite them."

"And why," the interrogator questioned, "would you have wanted them to be able to track you successfully? Especially Agent Bristow?"

Here Sloane fixed the mirror with his gaze, and spoke directly to his own reflection—to the individuals he assumed, quite correctly, stood behind it. "Because I knew she would save my daughter."

"Sydney," Jack said in a low voice, "are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she said, and though he knew it was an automatic response on her part, he let it lie. Sark glanced at him and raised his eyebrows; Jack merely met his stare until the younger man turned away.

Jack suggested, "Perhaps you should rest."

"I can't. Not yet." She didn't even look at him. She just watched Sloane, who had turned back to the agent.

"You realize I can order you to . . . rest."

"Yes."

She must have known he wouldn't. Not this time. She deserved to hear whatever truth Arvin was capable of giving them. She needed answers. He wanted to protect her—would always want to protect her—but here, now, he couldn't. And so he gave her the next best thing. He gave her what she needed.

"Tell me about the woman you were working with," the agent—Wallace, Jack recalled belatedly—said.

Sloane leaned back, steepling his hands in front of his sternum. "What do you want to know?"

If Jack had been Agent Wallace, he would have broken Arvin's nose, just on principle. Agent Wallace, who had never worked under the man, merely crossed his arms. "Her name would be a nice start."

"Ah. Elena Derevko. Irina Derevko's sister. She's been underground for quite a few years, so I presume the CIA has very little in the way of information on her."

Agent Wallace, impassively: "Anything you can tell us would be helpful."

"Yes, I'm sure." Arvin put his hands on the table in front of him, leaning forward again. "She's a follower of Rambaldi and, if anything, more focused than her younger sisters. Characteristic of the eldest." Arvin smiled, and Jack found himself trying to recall the last time that smile had looked sincere to him. "You, Agent Wallace, I would assume were the middle child."

"Second of four, actually," Wallace answered in monotone. _Good man_, Jack thought, approving. "You?"

"Youngest." He answered it easily, as if it gave nothing away, and perhaps it didn't, since that fact was recorded in his CIA file. "I had an older sister, who died when I was young."

"I'm sorry," Wallace said without much sympathy, waited a beat, and then reminded him: "Elena Derevko?"

"Elena Derevko," Arvin said, as if they hadn't just been speaking of anything else, "is a very dangerous woman. Her drive is exceeded solely by her ruthlessness. She cares for nothing beyond bringing Rambaldi's work to fruition."

An apt description, Jack would have said, of Arvin Sloane himself—at least before today, when he had sacrificed himself and the work he'd spent thirty years of his life doing to protect his daughter. There was something more sacred to Arvin than Rambaldi after all, though now that he knew it was possible, Jack wasn't surprised to find it was Arvin's own little piece of immortality: his child.

At the very least Arvin had confirmed for them that Nadia had been taken against her will—that as wrong as Jack may have been about Vaughn, he had taken the correct course of action regarding Nadia, at least. He'd taken extra precautions with her from the beginning of course, encouraging Sydney to bring her sister into her home where Jack already had extra surveillance (surveillance Vaughn must have discovered, in order to jam the audio and video, and which Jack would have to conceal better in the future), but those had only been that: precautions. Because inside, he couldn't help thinking of her and Sydney as alike, two halves of an endangered whole, the both of them helpless pawns in a larger game. He'd done his best to shield Sydney from everything he could; who had been there to shield Nadia? They'd found video, six-year-old Nadia writhing in a dentist's chair, arms strapped down, dark fragile head flailing against the padded back, and he could do nothing but imagine his own daughter there, helpless, in pain. Nadia was Irina's, too—she was what Sydney could have been, had things been different.

_Irina's, with Arvin Sloane,_ Jack reminded himself viciously, and it helped distance him from the sympathy, the respect, that had nearly stirred in his breast.

"I can only tell you what I know," Arvin was saying, and Jack realized he'd stopped paying attention. He told himself he'd review the tapes later, several times, and that would be enough. It was more important now for him to be there for Sydney.

He looked at her, and found Sark—whose intel, however scant, regarding Elena Derevko had just been confirmed by Arvin Sloane, but who Jack still did not trust, of course—doing the same. Jack's eyes narrowed.

"You expect us to believe you participated in Elena's scheme without knowing the details of her intentions?" Wallace asked.

"What choice did I have?" Arvin's smile was poignantly bitter, as sincere and yet calculated as any Jack had ever seen from him. "With her help, I was able to find my daughter."

"But you changed your mind about working with her," Wallace prompted.

"I thought our goals—our concerns—were the same," Arvin said. His face had tightened, and his voice teetered on the edge of breaking. "We needed Nadia, but I would never hurt her. The choice came down to Rambaldi, or my daughter . . . and I chose Nadia."

Elena Derevko had been part of the KGB project that had subjected Nadia to the serum—or rather, an imperfect facsimile thereof—when Nadia was six years old. Her younger sister, she said, had become weak during her time in America. She had grown more cunning, more clever, but also more emotional: attached to her false husband, too involved with the child she'd left behind. And, since she was incarcerated, Irina's rights over the child were legally transferred to Elena, who stepped in and did what her little sister no longer could: prepare Nadia to meet her destiny.

The tapes Sydney had found in her initial search for Nadia, Jack gathered, were the record of that time. As soon as Nadia was old enough that it was judged the injections would not kill her, the faux-serum had been used to trigger the encoded muscle-memory that let her transcribe the formula for locating the Sphere of Life.

But she'd been taken before she could complete the formula—by a former CIA/KGB double Elena had recruited to her cause . . . and with Elena's knowledge. By then Elena had realized the KGB's shortsightedness. Nadia was meant for more. The serum had been mixed incorrectly; the manuscript from which the ingredients had been taken was a fake, improperly transcribed from the original. It had been missing the key component: the disk Sydney had stolen, and then traded for Vaughn's freedom, the year before. When the KGB did not believe her, she took matters into her own hands. She had Nadia stolen, and then disappeared herself—to the orphanage in Argentina where Nadia grew up.

It had taken Elena years to track down the correct formula. And when she succeeded, she found that the last ingredient she needed, the one the KGB had neglected to include in their original serum, had already been stolen . . . and traded to Arvin Sloane.

Which was, Sloane said, the real reason she had contacted him. Her Rambaldi knowledge matched, if not exceeded, his own, thanks to the efforts of her long-lived but recently disbanded intelligence organization. The Covenant. At first Arvin had believed Elena to be a like-minded seeker. Willing to sacrifice, aware of the cost of pursuing Rambaldi's genius, but essentially rational (an assumption that Jack found amusing coming from Arvin Sloane). He had been incorrect: she hadn't cared about Nadia but as a means to an end. And seeing that, he had seen himself more clearly than had been comfortable: how far he had come from the man he had wanted to be for his daughter, the man that Emily had loved. He knew he couldn't allow Elena to succeed. But until he knew more, he was not able to stop her.

So together they had assembled the necessary components to build another Mueller device. And when they found a power source significant enough to run it, and learned the CIA was going after it, Elena had brought in Michael Vaughn.

Arvin hadn't concerned himself with the details of Elena's arrangement with Vaughn. He disapproved—for Sydney's sake, of course; both Jack and Sydney had snorted almost simultaneously at that—but he'd had larger considerations. How much Michael Vaughn knew, or what part he played in any of it, Arvin did not know.

"I have other information—the locations of labs, interpretations of prophecies—but with Elena dead, I'm afraid I have nothing else of use. If you'll provide me with something to write with, I'll list what little I can." Agent Wallace nodded, thanked him, and concluded the interview, and Arvin bowed his head. Jack narrowed his eyes, and waited. As he'd expected, Arvin looked up as Wallace reached the door. "If she's willing, I would like to see my daughter."

Wallace paused, but his expression didn't change, validating Jack's choice of questioner further. "We'll see what we can do," he said.

The door opened, then shut, and their business there, silent, in the dark, on the other side of a one-way mirror, was over.

Sydney turned to him. "What do you think?" Her voice was hushed, as if in deference to the story they had just heard.

"The history is in line with what we already knew about Nadia's childhood, and Elena's background." Here he gave Sark a grudging acknowledgment. "If William Vaughn was the agent in question, as the information we discovered in his journals would indicate, that may be how Vaughn became involved."

Sydney said, still softly, "I meant about Sloane, loving Nadia like that."

He felt uneasy about the discomfort he had obviously caused, invoking Vaughn unnecessarily (for the moment), and so weighed his words even more carefully than usual in answering. "I think . . . that there is nothing for Arvin to gain from making it up."

"Nadia's trust," Sydney offered.

"Implying that he values it, which would be precisely in line with what he has told us."

"Or that he still needs her for something Rambaldi-related." Sydney folded her arms more tightly. "Damn it."

"I believe that, if nothing else, his love for Nadia is sincere."

"And we lost her. Again. To Vaughn."

Yes, Vaughn. It was difficult for Jack to imagine Michael Vaughn as a Rambaldi follower but, as he had already discovered, obviously his assumptions regarding Vaughn were severely in need of re-evaluation. Would Vaughn try to pick up where Elena had left off?

He would look into it—without Sydney. She would need to be involved eventually—she'd been closest to both Nadia and Vaughn, and knew them best—but not now, not yet. She needed some time first; she had been betrayed, and that was something he understood. He would . . . he would take care of her.

He studied her: the chemical flush of her face from the explosion Vaughn had triggered to seal the door behind he and Nadia, the hints of abrasions, the tight-wrapped burns on the undersides of her arms as she had brought them up to shield her face. The circles beneath her eyes were dark, her hair frizzed at the top where her hair had escaped from her tight, low ponytail. Her presence was still steady, still challenging, but she was fading.

"Mr. Sark," he said, turning to the young man now standing just beyond his daughter, "thank you for your assistance." It was a dismissal and, Jack thought, a generous one at that: no threats, no posturing regarding apprehension or custody. He'd been a help, and they owed him that.

"No," Sydney said, looking up at him suddenly. "We still need him. Nadia's still missing, and Sark has contacts we don't."

Jack balked at the very idea of continuing to work with Sark, especially with the way he insisted on looking at his daughter, but Sydney was of course correct. They knew Michael Vaughn had Nadia, and that was more than they'd had before, but obviously Michael Vaughn's own contacts extended beyond the scope they had originally anticipated. Jack reminded himself to have a talk with their security people, see what they could find on old tapes and recordings, and also step up surveillance on Sydney's for the future. This was partially his fault, for assuming Vaughn's loyalty to Sydney to be the man's driving impulse. Obviously his assessment had been incorrect; Lauren Reed should have made him realize that sooner, if nothing else.

She turned to Sark: "If you're willing."

The look he gave her was curious, but nothing more. "I am."

"I'll return with Sark to his . . . base of operations. We'll see what we can find out about Elena Derevko's plans, and who else she might have been working with, there." Her pause had been slight, but Jack caught it nonetheless. She turned pleading eyes on him. "Keep me updated on what you find out."

He didn't like it.

"Please," Sydney said, and he was enough her father to say, "Of course." If he could give her this much control, he would. Sydney was an adult. And one perfectly capable of manipulating Sark to meet her own ends.

"Maybe between us . . . ." She trailed off, and her professional mask dissolved, exposing the exhaustion, the numb heartbreak, beneath. Jack felt another stab of fury at Vaughn for having hurt her.

Sark touched Sydney gently on the arm, murmured, "Why don't you go freshen up? I'm sure your father's arranged a change of clothes."

Jack scowled—of course he had. But that was hardly what Sydney needed just then.

Except Sydney said, "You're right. Yes," and gave him a genuine, if subdued, smile.

And that, more than anything else he had seen between them today, was what elicited Jack's concern.

"I'll be right back," she told them both, and then left the room.

Leaving Jack with the opportunity to do what he did best: make promises he was not only able, but very, very willing to keep.

As the door closed, Jack turned to Sark, who leaned casually against the wall just past the glass. "I don't trust you," Jack said.

"Really."

The younger man drawled the word, brows raised and the left corner of his mouth curved in supreme amusement at Jack's understatement. Jack ignored it. His voice remained steely, and even.

"I don't know what you're hoping to gain from helping my daughter, but if you betray her—if any harm comes to her while she is with you—there will be no place on this earth for you to go where I cannot find you. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly. It's refreshing, actually." He might have been sneering under the placid façade, or else been nearly sincere; Jack couldn't say, nor did he particularly care, as long as the threat was understood. "Shall I promise to have her home by midnight, as well?"

"Be glad," Jack said, "that I am more upset with Michael Vaughn at the moment than I am with you."

"Michael Vaughn," Sark replied, "has much to fear from us both."

"Ready," Sydney said, appearing at the door. Jack turned his attention to her. She'd traded the blood-stained black tactical gear for a slim, dove gray tracksuit, which she had zipped halfway to reveal a clean white shirt beneath. Still tired. Jack ached to touch her—to be able to pull her into his arms and rock her the way he hadn't since she was a small child, since before Irina had left them and his world (and, because of him, hers) had fallen apart.

Sark turned to look at her as well, then nodded briskly. "We'll be off, then. Unless, Agent Bristow, you have anything further?"

It galled him that he did not. "No."

"A pleasure chatting with you, then."

"Likewise."

Sydney looked between them, shook her head, and sighed. "I'll talk to you soon," she said, and Sark moved to join her.

"Sydney," Jack said before the door could close, and she turned. He gripped her by the shoulders, then pulled her to him, holding her. She buried her face in his jacket, and her body trembled once before she pulled herself under control. He closed his eyes.

"Thanks, Dad," she whispered as he released her, giving him a small smile.

Alone, Jack arranged materials for Arvin to record his list of locations; he'd start there, searching for Michael Vaughn. In the meantime, he'd work on contacting the best source he had: his wife.


	13. Part Thirteen

**Part Thirteen**

Sydney finished vomiting, and sat back weakly on the bathroom floor, head leaned against the cool tile wall.

"Here." Sark. Offering a damp towel, concern unfamiliar and somewhat confusing on his face.

_He still looks so young_, Sydney thought idly, too worn out physically and mentally to properly sustain her grief. _How can anyone in this business still look so young?_

She took the offered towel, pressed it to her cheeks, and mouth, and then her neck. It helped: the chill felt nice and the act of wetting her own skin was enough to distract her from the reality of her situation, and of the last few days.

_Weiss_. He'd heard the shots. He'd heard them, and he'd come in, because that was the signal, he and the group he'd led, all APO (she'd called them in, she'd called her father, she'd been the one to outline the plan)—they'd come in, and then—

She closed her eyes, blocking it out. She willed herself not to retch. _Not in front of Sark. _Not again.

She'd slept most of the way back on the plane, each time she awoke finding a fresh glass of water next to the untouched protein bar and bottle of pain relievers, or possibly sedatives. She hadn't needed them; she'd been numb enough without them. She hadn't even cried. She hadn't been able to. She'd stopped feeling anything since they'd left the CIA safe house hours before. Or rather, anything except exhaustion. It wasn't until they arrived there at Sark's home, until he'd left her to a dinner she hadn't eaten while he followed up on a few leads he'd gathered while in the air and she'd gone upstairs instead, tugged off the track suit jacket, pushed off her shoes, and climbed wearily into the pillowy comfort of the guest bed, that everything had finally hit her, and hard. _Nadia. Weiss. Vaughn._ She'd only just made it to the bathroom before she lost what little she'd eaten earlier that day. And she'd spent the next few hours curled up on the floor—because it was easier, and because it was as much as she deserved.

The danger passed slowly, and she was back to feeling hollow and wrung out, but steady, her stomach quiet. Bracing herself, she reopened her eyes to assess the magnanimity of her host, the always unpredictable Mr. Sark. He had sat down against the wall by the door, several feet away. It appeared that he was planning on keeping her company for the duration. Lucky for them both it appeared the worst had passed. She was fairly she was out of stomach lining to vomit up.

Gingerly, she pushed off the floor and pulled herself to her feet using the counter as leverage. She licked her dry, sour lips to speak.

"What are you doing up?"

She cringed inwardly at the rasp of her voice.

"The violent sound of you emptying what was left of your internal organs into my plumbing woke me. Or rather, it woke Harrison, who in turn alerted me."

She was preparing to snap something back—_as if you care_, maybe—when her vision swam, and she swayed.

Sark caught her, and he was frowning, his gaze far too shrewd for her liking. "Did you eat?"

She thought about lying, and then admitted, "I couldn't."

He stared at her as if she were the single dumbest person he had ever set his chilly blue eyes on. She didn't even have the energy to be offended. "Sydney, considering this morning's events—"

"Considering this morning's events what, Sark?" she interrupted wearily. "My best friend's been shot. My boyfriend lied to me, and kidnapped my sister at gunpoint. He has her now. And I managed to kill the only woman who could have given us any answers, because God knows Sloane's not going to be any actual help."

"You're feeling guilty about Elena Derevko," Sark said.

"I am not."

Except she was. Elena Derevko was her aunt, her mother's sister. Family, however little she might have wanted it. And Elena Derevko was dead.

"You did the world a favor, I can assure you."

She swallowed, and though she knew she shouldn't, she asked, "Did she and Mom—were they—"

Sark nodded, as if he had been expecting that. "Her relationship with Irina was . . . difficult, at best. Sydney, Irina will not mourn her. Not if Sloane was telling the truth about her intentions toward Nadia."

"Nadia knew her," Sydney said, remembering again the stricken look on her sister's face, the way Nadia had fallen to her knees and clasped Elena's hand, the lone wild shot and the blood blooming across Eric's chest . . . .

"I need to brush my teeth," she said. The words sounded so strange, as if her voice was echoing inside her own head.

"Of course." He continued to support her, hands at her elbows, bracing her between his body and the counter. It felt good.

She said, "I can't do that if you don't let me go."

He smiled, just slightly, in acknowledgment of both her words and the stubbornness beneath them. Then he gave her a long assessment, his expression wary, as if doubtful of her ability to stand on her own.

"I'm fine now," she told him, and was pleased by how steady her voice sounded. "I just stood up too fast before. That was all."

He finally nodded. "I'll be in the other room, then."

_Why?_ she wondered, but part of her was glad. She'd been there in that cold white room, alone with her thoughts and the bathroom tile, for too long already.

But it was more than that, as well. It was Sark. She was glad that _Sark_ was there, with her—silent, occasionally witheringly so, but unmistakably present. His presence was, quite frankly, strange, because Sark's specialty was escapes, not sticking around.

When she had realized Nadia was gone, it was Sark who had told her to go—who had, arm grazed and bloodied from Elena's bullet, taken over applying pressure to Weiss's wound while the paramedics were called in. And it was Sark who had found her in the hallway when it was over, gun dangling uselessly at her side, arms burned from the door blast, in near shock, and taken her away from there, gotten her to her father. For whatever reason, he was on her side in this. And having him there now, just beyond the doorway, made her feel—and she knew this was crazy—_safe_.

Safe enough to let her stomach finally calm. Safe enough to disregard his presence while she dug in her travel toiletries bag for her toothbrush.

She'd just squeezed the toothpaste onto the brush when her phone rang.

She'd brought the phone in with her—she hadn't wanted to be out of hearing range if anyone called to update her on the situation, on whether Weiss . . . . She just hadn't wanted to miss any calls. She reached for the phone instantly, answered, "Hello?"

"Sydney." Vaughn's voice: broken with relief, but harried, and with an edge of anxiety. "Thank God."

"I have nothing to say to you," she said, but that wasn't true: she had hundreds of things to say to him, like _how could you?_ and _why?_ and _what could possibly have been important enough for you to do something like this?_ And the one that hurt her to think of the most: _Was it all a lie?_

She caught Sark rising to his feet in the mirror, to do what she wasn't sure, and met his eyes. He nodded once, and sat slowly back down.

"I don't blame you," Vaughn said, and she nearly, incredulously, laughed. How kind of him to let her know he didn't blame her for the consequences of _his_ betrayal.

"Sydney, I never meant for any of this to happen, I swear. I'm just glad you're alright. The door—"

"Where's my sister?" she interrupted, forcing her voice to remain neutral, if hard.

"She's safe. For now, anyway. But I need—"

"You don't get to tell me," she said quietly, tensely, "what you need. Either you let my sister go, or you had better hope I'm not tracing this call, because I will hunt you down and make sure you pay for this if it's the very last thing I ever do."

There was silence on his end of the phone, and Sydney realized she was shaking. Her breathing was coming hard and fast.

"I can't," Vaughn said.

She hung up on him.

She put down the phone very carefully, and then picked her toothbrush up again. She brushed her teeth slowly, but thoroughly, and with great attention to detail. She rinsed three times, spitting neatly into the sink, and then, unable to stretch the process out any further, stared at her own reflection in the mirror. She was pale, but otherwise unmarked. She thought about Vaughn. About Nadia. It seemed impossible, that she should look so normal when her world had fallen apart. When there was so much that had already been forced to change inside her, so much that was so wrong.

The instant she had seen Vaughn there at the end of the corridor, Nadia with him, she'd known. His distraction at dinner the night Nadia was taken; his refusal to take her home; even their fight and his absence at APO after: everything clicked into place. He'd known. He'd been the one to arrange it. He'd abducted her _sister_. And then turned her over to . . . to Elena Derevko. A woman of whom Sydney knew nothing, really, but her reputation for cruelty. A woman who was dead now, by Sydney's hand.

Sydney couldn't be sorry. Sark was right; she'd done the world a favor. She could still see the look on Sloane's face—the anguish—as he explained the serum, and its use. As he explained what Elena had been planning. _Sloane's_. The images his words had summoned in her mind, the echo of those videos—her sister, strapped down, bucking, screaming, eyes rolling back in her head . . . . Vaughn couldn't have known what Elena intended. Sydney had to believe that, or lose her grip on her sanity entirely. But he must not have asked, either. And having been given the chance to return her to her home, to turn himself in—_to do the right thing_—he'd fled instead. Forced Nadia to go with him. And that was unforgivable.

She pulled her hair back slowly, twisted it, then pulled it over one shoulder. And as she did so, Sark came into focus behind her. He sat on the bed, leaned forward to rest his forearms on his thighs, watching her. His hands were folded as he waited. He looked . . . he looked worried. But not for himself. For _her_.

And suddenly something else came into focus as well.

He cared about her. Julian Sark. Cared about her.

Why else do this? Why else help her, and ask nothing in return? She remembered how searchingly he'd said her name, her first night there; how much care he had taken with her all day. How had she failed to notice?

It wasn't professional courtesy that had brought him to her room tonight, or annoyance at being woken up. It was something else. Something she didn't know what she should do with. But something, she realized suddenly, as repressed desire ripped through her like a gunshot, she knew exactly what she _wanted_ to do with.

He caught her looking at him, and their eyes locked. Slowly, eyes still on hers, he stood. He reached the threshold of the bathroom just as she turned, took two steps towards him, and crushed her mouth to his.

He didn't push her away.

He pulled her tightly to him and plundered her mouth, hands tightening painfully on her shoulders, and she let him, encouraged him, wanted in that moment nothing more than to have him hurt her everywhere, to have him pound her into the cold, antiseptic white tile.

Vaughn would have stopped her. She was vulnerable. She'd just learned that the man she loved had betrayed her. But Sark didn't stop her. He didn't question it, or her. She offered, and he took.

He was bruising her, but she didn't care. He was as desperate for her as she was for this. He slid his hands down the slope of her back, over the curve of her ass, and lifted her to him. She went willingly, wrapping her legs around his waist. And she pulled her own shirt off as he carried her to the bed.

She yanked off her pants, and tore into his clothes. His eyes were hot and she almost mistook the lust in them for anger, it was so sharp, so hungry. His hands were hard on her breasts, rough as they squeezed them, and his breath was harsh. He bit her mouth, savaged her flesh. And when he pushed into her, she felt wide open, ripped in two, and the moan that escaped her lips was equal parts pain and the desperation for more of it. She wanted him to open her up, to flay her alive; she wanted him to expose every part of her, lay her bare and raw beneath him.

He seemed to want it too—he pressed her thighs apart mercilessly, almost viciously, pounding into her until she thought she might break, his pelvic bone grinding tightly against her as he jack-hammered his hips. She clung to his shoulders, pressed her breasts into him, cried out. He was brutal, and she wanted it, she didn't fight it, she gave herself up to him and let him batter her until he came, as she struggled against the threat of tears.

"I'm sorry," he murmured when he had finished, forehead pressed to hers, their sweat commingling on their skin.

He was still inside her, but softening, slipping from her. She just closed her eyes. His thumb was making soft circles on her hip, as if he could soothe the bruises away just with his touch, and it was unbearable, at first, the way he was touching her. The way he was coaxing the pain from her with the lightness of the motion. Every part of her ached, which was what she had wanted, pain, but now he was making the pain seem unnatural, unneeded. And suddenly, she wanted to be soothed.

She licked her dry lips, and left her eyes closed as he kissed her swollen mouth softly, barely caressing it with his own. He shifted so that he lay beside her, and his hands were gentle as they coaxed her onto her back. He pressed his lips against the swell of her left breast, softly kissed the nipple, as he guided his hands along her body with care, as if smoothing away imaginary wrinkles in her skin. He hesitated at the juncture of her thighs, and her whole body bowed towards him in renewed need.

"I want . . . I want to take care of you," he whispered, as if the words were foreign to him. He said it again, "I want to take care of you," stronger, and there was so much reverence, so much yearning, in his voice that, staring down at him, eyes large and blind, she nodded her assent.

He urged her over him, sliding onto his back and down until she straddled his chest.

"Up," he said softly—and she eased herself forward until she could lower herself onto his mouth.

His tongue was almost unbearably gentle as it moved against her still-hot, swollen flesh. His fingers drew reassuring figures on her skin, feather light as they teased against the insides of her thighs. He settled into an easy rhythm and she settled onto him, letting him take the weight of her, resting the undersides of her legs against his shoulders as he eased her open with his tongue.

He was blissfully slow, endlessly attentive, and as he worked she rested her head against the top of the headboard, and breathed out a sigh. She was heating now, simmering slowly, with a liquid warmth that took her over like a wave. His thumbs stroked wetly to either side of his mouth, the tip of his tongue flickering like a low flame at the sensitive exposed nerves, and then pushed ever . . . so . . . slowly inside her, and she came in a slow, high arc, his mouth coaxing her up and easing her, shuddering, back down.

He took a last, lazy lap between her legs, kissed her there, then lifted her off of him and down. He shifted them until he could hold her against his chest, arms warm around her body, one hand curving along her hip while the other slid tenderly into her hair.

"It's alright, Sydney, it's alright," he said then, and, finally, in his arms, she started to cry.


	14. Part Fourteen

**Part Fourteen**

Sark woke surrounded by her scent. He breathed it in, deeply, preserving the moment against what was to come, and then opened his eyes.

Sydney slept on beside him, arms curled against her chest, hair awry and dark smudges beneath her eyes speaking of her fragility. In the morning light, at this distance, he could see the freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose, an improbable detail, and one he lingered on. The bare curves of her shoulders and the upper swell of her breasts were smooth, touched by the warmth of the just-rising sun, and her skin looked almost gilded.

He was missing the sunrise for her. He would, he realized, rather watch her.

Even in the midst of his good fortune, he wished she'd been in his bed instead—though of course every bed, here, was his bed. Still, to have the memory of her there, where he had chosen to regularly take his rest . . . .

He was aware of the possibility that she would be less easy with this most recent change in their association than he was. _Possibility_ was the wrong word; _strong likelihood_ was far more accurate. And yet it made little difference in his own feelings.

It was a cliché to regret one's heat-of-the-moment actions, and accordingly it was something he refused to do. It was a decision he'd made early on in life, both where women and his work were concerned, because it was impossible to cope, otherwise, with the second-guessing. He'd been so afraid he'd hurt her, before he realized she'd been damaged before he touched her—and he'd owed it to her to do what he could to take away whatever he might have done to injure her further. His code of morality may have always been somewhat unorthodox, but he _did_ have one.

And he loved her. He may not be entirely sure of what the implications of that were on a practical level as of yet—he'd never thought he would have the opportunity to exercise them, quite frankly—but he did love her. And that meant taking care of her. He knew that. He had simply been surprised at the extent to which he had truly and honestly _wanted_ to. Needed to, even. It gave new shape to the word "love." It gave it new weight.

He loved her.

He was still at a loss to explain why, or precisely when. He knew it had happened while she had been clothed in Lauren's body, at the very least; he'd been well and truly gone—or as far as a man like him went—by the time she had arrived in his room in the middle of the night like his own personal, exquisite ghost of Christmases past and, if he were a very, very good boy, future, too. Perhaps it had been the confusion of seeing her looking out of Lauren's eyes—Lauren, a woman he admired immensely, and with whom a more serious relationship than the one with which they had been toying would have not been unseemly—that had tipped him from abstract appreciation to intimate appetite. It would have been an easy locus for emotional transference.

He suspected, however, that it was something else, something more. Something about Sydney herself. He was, he was sure, hardly the first to acknowledge it, but there was no other woman in the world whose vulnerability could touch a man, could cause him to make foolish decisions, the way Sydney's did. It stirred vulnerabilities of his own—which he had not heard from in years—in a remarkable feat of aggressive empathy. Seeing her the way he had that night he'd returned to find her drunk in their hotel room, desperate and helpless and angry and hurting . . . naked in every way beneath him . . . he hadn't needed to see her face to feel as if he knew her. He wouldn't have been seeing her true face anyway; he would have been seeing Lauren's—though Lauren's, he understood now, often blurred the line between the two of them after nearly two years as Michael Vaughn's paramour, all of Sydney's more intimate quirks projected upon her by a weak and grieving man. Lauren wasn't the victim, of course: she had courted those comparisons, taken on slowly but purposefully the ones she had not inferred on her own or learned from Sydney's early interrogations at Covenant hands. She had made herself in another woman's image . . . and that, Sark had come to realize belatedly, was likely what had done him in. He'd never truly been falling in love with Lauren at all; he'd been falling for Sydney Bristow the entire time.

It was sobering, and not particularly pleasant, but there was no point in belaboring it now, as it was done, and he was in love, and the object of that love was here, in his home, damaged, still in a state of bone-deep shock, but otherwise whole and more receptive to him than he had ever guessed possible.

She stirred, legs shifting, tongue peeking out to wet her lips, and he let his eyes close, feigning sleep. She would waken, momentarily, and recall the events that put him in her bed. There were a distastefully astronomical number of ways in which things could go wrong from here; he needed to play this very carefully if he wanted to be there again.

He didn't dare do anything but listen. There was silence—but he waited. He could exercise patience, in these circumstances. In a few moments he felt her weight on the bed shift, the mattress depress and then return as she left it. He could just hear her bare feet on the carpet as she moved—her pause. Was it in indecision? Was she heading for the door? He could not tell. And he was not willing to take the chance.

When he opened his eyes she was standing in the center of the room, arms wrapped protectively around her slender torso, the t-shirt he'd pulled on for modesty the night before falling inadequately to the tops of her thighs. Her posture was hesitant, as if she were unsure of her next move.

He propped himself up on one elbow. "Sydney," he made himself murmur sleepily, "are you stealing something?"

He kept his voice casual, at odds with the tightness in his chest. _Smile for me, Sydney_, he begged, and one corner of her mouth tugged upwards as she processed his reference to their last night together.

"No," she answered.

"Then come back to bed."

She stood there a moment, then asked, "What if I had been?" Her tone was curious, but also wary. Testing her boundaries, the limits of their new understanding.

Good-naturedly, he replied, "I would have requested you put it back first."

Smiling again, with both sides of her mouth this time, she climbed back into bed, tentative but less tense than she'd looked standing in the middle of the room. Carefully, she settled onto her side, facing him.

He wanted to ask her why she'd gone to bed with him, but he was fairly sure he would not like any answer she could be expected to give, and so he remained silent on the subject. Better to let her bring it up, if she felt the need. And any doubts or regrets she might be experiencing—and she would be experiencing some—were better left unsaid. To give voice to them would be to reify them, and it was better for him that they remain as indistinct as possible.

Instead, he asked, "How are you feeling this morning?"

"Better," she answered.

Moving slowly, but with purpose, he took her hand and brought her open palm to his mouth. He pressed a kiss to the sensitive skin. "I was worried," he told her, and that, unexpectedly, earned him another smile—a real one this time, a full Sydney Bristow special.

"I know," she said.

She glanced back over her shoulder, towards the window. "It's light out."

"Yes," he agreed. He wanted to touch her again—the shirt begged to be taken off, her mouth was too tempting not to kiss—but he refrained. Slowly, he reminded himself. He had to proceed with the utmost care, or lose whatever ground he'd inexplicably managed to gain with her. Caution first. His momentary urges came after. And if he had his way, he'd some day have time and opportunity for those as well.

"So are you this lazy every morning?"

It took him a moment to cotton on to her teasing; he hadn't been expecting it from her, not in these circumstances—not ever, actually, if he were honest. He couldn't help his smile.

"If I like."

"Mm. Retirement must be nice."

"It has its moments."

This one, for instance. She was smiling up at him again.

"Isn't this where you suggest I join you? Give up my dreary life in the CIA and stay here with you forever?" she asked, dark eyes sparkling.

He snorted, affronted. "Hardly. Everyone knows I work alone."

She laughed, and he was bemused at how much that pleased him. It reminded him of when he'd known her at SD-6, in those few unguarded moments he spied while moving from one sector of the Credit Dauphine offices to another: Sydney teasing Dixon, Sydney smiling as she listened to one of Marshall's more questionable op-tech briefs. Curious, how moments that made little impact on him at the time should come back to him so clearly now, and that these images should seem so inexplicably full of import. At the time he'd merely thought of her mother, locked in CIA custody, and also, yes, stolen a glance at her legs. He was a red-blooded male in the prime of life, after all. He was a professional; he wasn't dead.

When he returned his attention to the present, she was watching him, a single questioning line sketched across her brow. "What are you—"

Her phone began to ring.

The soft curve of her mouth tensed at once, and he watched everything that phone call might mean come back into her eyes. For a long moment she appeared paralyzed. He reached to touch her—reassure her, comfort her—and she threw back the covers, leaving him alone in the bed. He closed his eyes; it had been a foolish impulse to begin with.

"Bristow," he heard her answer stiffly as she closed the bathroom door behind her. The rest was lost to his ears.

When she re-emerged, her mouth was set grimly, her face ten years older than it had been just moments before.

"News?" he asked.

"No change," she said, "and nothing yet from Sloane's leads."

"I'm sorry," he told her. He wanted to go to her, but something about the way she stood, even in just his t-shirt, enforced the distance between them. She had retreated back into herself, into her work mode. This was the Sydney Bristow he had known in the field these last few years, the sharp eyed, hard-lined woman who had taken the place of the younger, more passionate one he remembered from their early encounters. He loved this one as well, of course—but there was no way to reach her when she was this way. He could only wait for her next move, and react accordingly.

"We need to get to work," she said. "Dad sent me a list of possible contacts of Elena's. He's hoping you'll have some in common, or know how to reach them."

He nodded. "All right."

She pushed her hair behind her ears, and only then seemed to remember what she was (and wasn't) wearing, where she was, the stickiness of sweat and sex between her thighs. "I need to shower."

He was tempted only briefly to offer to join her—the thought had him beginning to harden even despite the impossibility, despite how out of place such a proposal would have been, and how ill-received. Instead, he said, "I'll start some coffee. Breakfast?"

She shook her head. "I don't think I could eat yet this morning. But . . . thank you."

He nodded. And they looked at each other. After a moment, he realized it was because each was waiting for the other to leave. After another moment, it occurred to him that it might be best if he were the one to do so.

His nudity didn't bother him, but he suspected it might be prudent to remain covered in the circumstances. How to do so was of course the issue. Deciding it was best simply to get it over with, he reached down to retrieve his boxers where they had fallen by the side of the bed and pulled back the covers. Her eyes, he was pleased to note, shifted unapologetically down his body.

"Enjoy your shower, Sydney," he said, boxers on and smirk only barely concealed.

"Thanks," she said faintly.

By the time she joined him in the dining room _cum_ makeshift workroom—hair damp and fastened at the nape of her neck, shirt and jeans casual but face lightly made up (to look good for him, or because her tired pallor shamed her?)—he had the coffee ready and a plate of toasted, buttered crumpets on the table.

"Jam?" she asked him, picking up the small jar of currant jam he'd placed next to it and shooting him an amused look.

"Yes. Don't make a fuss." He was already well into his morning survey of international news sites, and in addition had decided it would be best to act . . . naturally . . . for the time being. Until she seemed ready to talk about what had happened. Not that he could say what "naturally" would be for them anymore. He found himself almost missing Lauren; things had been much simpler with her, though whether that had been because of the woman she was or the limited scope of his feelings for her, he could not say.

"I'm sending you Dad's list," she said after a few minutes, her coffee cup filled and a crumpet, spread with jam, on a napkin folded beside her laptop. "Sloane mentioned Elena giving Vaughn a slip of paper with some information on it—a location, he thought. Possibly of a contact. If Vaughn is working with Elena, trying to finish what she was trying to do with Nadia, we might be able to track them down this way."

He didn't wish to upset her further, but it seemed important to know. "Do you believe that Vaughn may be attempting to finish Elena Derevko's work?"

"I don't know," she said, looking fixedly down at her keyboard. "I wouldn't have thought so, before. And it still seems . . . off, somehow. I just know he has Nadia. And as long as that's true, this may be the best way to find them."

Carefully, he placed his hand on hers, where it lay in her lap. She started at the touch, turning to look at him abruptly, but then she turned her hand over to link her fingers with his. His skin was hot where they touched. Such simple contact, but somehow as intimate as anything else they'd shared.

Her lips pressed together in a semblance of a smile. "Thanks," she whispered, and squeezed their joined hands before releasing his.

He nodded, and turned to his computer screen, feeling warm and unsettled.

He ought to have gotten used to it by now. Where Sydney Bristow was concerned, nothing ever went the way he expected it would. Nothing was simple.

He counted his blessings, and began reviewing Jack Bristow's list.


	15. Part Fifteen

**Part Fifteen**

They went to Austria.

They went by train, because the airports would be watched more carefully, and while Vaughn stared moodily out the window at the passing countryside, Nadia curled up in the compartment seat across from him and slept. Her fatigue had been stronger for the moment than her need to understand. After all, she was well used to accepting what she could not control—her whole life had been an exercise in precisely that.

But she woke up hungry and ready for answers.

Over weak tea and toast—she hadn't had anything for long enough that starting slow seemed the smartest choice—she asked about Sofia.

If Vaughn was to be believed—and she could think of little reason for him to lie to her now—Sofia had been merely an alias, and the woman who had cared for her, watched over her, for so many years, was her aunt, her mother's eldest sister, Elena Derevko. She had been a follower of Rambaldi, and she had devoted her life to keeping Nadia safe.

"From what?" Nadia had asked, as kidnapping and drugging had apparently fallen within Elena's definition of safe, but Vaughn hadn't known himself, not really. A group of Rambaldi followers whose interests were best served by her death, he supposed. Was that the group to which he belonged? He didn't belong to any group, he'd said, ignoring the cut. He didn't care about Rambaldi one way or the other. Then why was he involved? Bad luck, he said moodily, and chance proximity, through Sydney, to her.

Elena had contacted him. (He didn't go into details, and she didn't press him for them—yet.) She'd offered the information on how to find Lauren Reed, in exchange for his assistance in bringing Nadia to her, and he'd made the deal. What she'd wanted, Vaughn said, had to do with Rambaldi, but not with Nadia's death. Nadia had been named in prophecies, called "the Passenger." And whatever it was she was meant for, Elena and her father had been working together to achieve it—and had been planning to use her, Nadia suspected, with or without her consent.

Vaughn spoke in dull monotone. Presumably whatever information Sofia—Elena—had given him on that slip of paper, how to find Lauren Reed, the information he'd been willing to betray Sydney for, was what had determined their current destination, but he only looked more and more grim as they approached it, as if this thing he had risked his life and sacrificed his place with the agency for was not something he wanted at all.

Nadia left him to his melancholy, and ate. The toast went down more easily than she'd expected, and even though she knew it was too soon, she wanted more: she wanted eggs, or salami, or a thick gazpacho. She'd never held back, not ever, whether she was dealing with danger or breakfast—she devoted herself wholeheartedly to whatever she believed in, to whatever she had chosen, heedless of the consequences. Passion, she'd always thought of it as, and considered it virtue. She still did. But passion without control was foolhardy. She needed focus. She couldn't think about . . . about a lot of things. Perhaps that was why she allowed herself to be so blind, why she threw herself into her work, into everything she did—because there were so many other things she had to avoid at all costs, or lose herself entirely.

To pass the time, she read a magazine she'd found stuffed between the seats. It was in German, and two weeks out of date, but that was fine. It was to distract her, not inform her. And to give her a reason to avoid Vaughn's eyes.

He hadn't asked her why she'd insisted on coming with him. Maybe he thought he knew—which was unlikely, as she hardly knew herself. Her decision had been . . . instinct. Impulse. Seeing him running for the door, she'd thought several things at once: First, that she could not let him just . . . get away. Second, that he was her best lead on discovering the purpose of Sofia's "work" and her own kidnapping, with Sofia dead and her father missing. And third, shamefully, most of all . . . that the CIA didn't take kindly to people shooting their agents, no matter what the circumstances were.

It was an accident. She was malnourished, sleep-deprived, traumatized, drugged. It wasn't her fault. She told herself that over and over again. But there was still enough of her older self in her—the teenage street rat who charmed her way through crimes and misdemeanors, and twitched at police sirens—that her instinct had been for flight. She was a coward, when it mattered. She'd always been a coward. She'd looked at Weiss, at Eric, at his chocolate brown puppy dog eyes wide with shock, and the way he clutched at this stomach, and she'd _panicked_.

The panic had been good. The panic had shot adrenaline into her bloodstream, cleared her system of the drug with which Vaughn had injected her. But it had only intensified her anxiety. It had made her stupid. She realized now: either the CIA had apprehended Sloane, or else he was out there, still looking for her, loving her, needing her for more Rambaldi insanity, but either way he could have given her the answers she needed. Would have; she knew it in her soul. She didn't need Vaughn. But she'd gone after him, and threatened him into taking her with him, and that was worse than what had happened to Weiss, that screamed guilt—except Sydney had been the last one to see her, with Vaughn, as Vaughn's captive, and she could testify. She would have told them already. They'd still be looking for her. If Sydney was alright. If Sydney hadn't . . . .

She couldn't allow herself to lose control. She'd contact APO, the CIA, anybody, at her first opportunity. Everything was going to be alright. And she'd have the whereabouts of Vaughn and, with any luck, of Lauren Reed as well. She could make up for her mistake. She could do this.

Vaughn left their compartment once—she would have taken the opportunity to search his things except he, like her, had nothing but what he wore (which they'd picked up before boarding the train, at Vaughn's expense), and what filled his pockets—and when he returned he said, "Sydney's alright."

"And Weiss?" she'd asked, forcing her chin up, forcing herself to meet his eyes. Except he wasn't looking at her.

"I didn't get a chance to ask."

His face was grim. In that moment, she felt a sudden, unwanted kinship with him. They had both hurt someone they cared about. They'd both made grave mistakes. But while she still had hope, his fate was sealed. His choices were irreversible. Hers were not.

A few silent hours into the trip, she'd casually suggested, "You should get some sleep," and he'd just snorted, and turned to look back out the window.

"I promise not to kill you while your eyes are closed," she'd forced herself to tease, the way they used to back when he was only her sister's boyfriend, only a coworker, "so you have nothing to fear from me."

He'd only grimaced, said, "It's not that." And then, stiltedly, "Thanks."

She'd ventured, hoping to at least gain a reaction, "Perhaps you'll sleep better once you've found Lauren."

His gaze shifted to her, but it was empty enough to chill her straight through.

She kept pressing. "That's where we're going, isn't it? To find her?"

"That's where we're going," he'd confirmed. But he hadn't said anything more, and after a few more attempts, she'd given up, for now, on trying.

They got off the train in Salzburg, a grad student and her boyfriend doing research for her dissertation. An easy thing, to get directions to the university. And their rental car was just another vehicle, another pair of headlights in the growing darkness, turning down a road three miles short of their purported destination.

At the Sacher Hotel, Vaughn turned off the car. Then he paused, car silent and dark, arms folded across the top of the steering wheel, and looked at the hotel's front doors. "Lauren's in there," he said quietly, more to himself than to her. He exhaled, and lowered his forehead to his arms.

She looked at the lit doors, then back at him. "But that's what you wanted."

"No. It was never what I wanted. None of this was."

He reached past her to the glove compartment, flipped it open, and took out a gun she hadn't known was there. The rental agent must have been a contact. He hesitated, the butt of the gun in his hand, then handed it to her. "If you're coming, take it."

"Of course I'm coming," she said, as if it weren't a question, as if she hadn't been preparing herself to have to argue it, to insist, to do whatever was necessary. He had startled her. What was he after? It couldn't be revenge, could it, if he was this blasé about her accompanying him?

"Then take it," he said. She did, after a bare moment of hesitation easily written off (she told herself) as dis-ease with the situation, and it was the same way it had always been. She'd shot (_killed_) people she loved before. This wasn't different. She wouldn't let her hand tremble. "Shoot her if you have to," he continued, closing the glove compartment and opening his door. "Just don't shoot to kill."

"What will you do?" she asked as he stepped out.

"I don't know yet."

They entered the hotel lobby, her ahead of him, gun tucked securely into her chocolate-colored slacks, hidden beneath the corduroy jacket. She went to the elevator bank, pressed the "up" button, and waited, while Vaughn went to the front desk. She could just make out his hushed words, the atrocious British accent.

"My wife, Ms. Bristow," (_Lauren checked in with Sydney's name_, Nadia realized, too surprised to be disgusted) "she hasn't left yet, has she? For her dinner? I know she prefers not to be late."

Nadia wondered if it hurt him, talking about Lauren Reed as his wife, even like this. She wondered if it hurt him, to hear she was using Sydney's name.

"My wife—blond hair, English, very beautiful."

Nadia jabbed the button with her index finger, faking impatience.

"Thank you, no, don't call ahead. I'd rather surprise her."

The door opened and she stepped inside. Vaughn called, "Hold that, please!" and she did, smiling distantly and politely at him as he stepped on. She released the button she'd kept pressed, and they closed.

"Seventh floor," he said, dropping the accent and his false charm. She hit the number seven, and the elevator began to rise.

"You don't think he'll warn her?" she asked.

"It's not that nice of a hotel," he said evenly. "Besides, she won't believe it. At least not in time." His voice was dark. "Maybe she'll think I'm Sark."

Nadia chose not to respond, but she wondered if that was part of why he'd chosen that particular accent.

Vaughn didn't pause, just kicked the door in as they reached it, and she was left scrambling for the gun, just to be prepared.

A woman who must have been Lauren—a moon-faced blonde with an upturned nose and dark-lined eyes, clad in all black with her hair pale and loose down her back—was bent over a half-packed suitcase. Her head whipped to the side as they entered, and then her eyebrows raised when she saw Vaughn. She really was lovely, Nadia thought, but in a cold sort of way—there was no warmth in her. There must have been once, though, she assumed, purposelessly. No one was born like that.

Lauren straightened.

"Hello, sweetheart," she purred, her voice dripping with amusement and disdain. "Did you miss me?"

Vaughn moved faster than Nadia would have expected, and faster than Lauren must have, because Vaughn slammed her easily up against the wall by the bed. Nadia heard her head crack against the wall.

"Did Julian tell you I preferred it rough?" Lauren taunted, and Nadia felt uncertain for the first time about what she was doing: this was too intimate, and didn't have anything to do with her. It made her queasy, the energy shivering between the two of them. It was sharp and volatile and sexual. Something low in her belly thrummed.

"Spare me," Vaughn spit. From where Nadia stood, she could see only the edge of his face, and the angle made the stubble on his jaw seem harsher. "You know why I'm here."

"I assume Sydney told you about Julian and my little affair."

Had she? Nadia wasn't sure. But he knew, of course. Everyone knew.

"I don't give a shit who you slept with." He punched her across the face, and Nadia had to keep herself from wincing. Vaughn leaned in as Lauren grimaced. There was blood on her mouth. "And for the record, you handcuffed me to a ladder and shoved your tongue down his throat. I figured it out for myself."

Lauren paused mid-licking the blood from her lower lip. And then she started laughing. "My God! You don't know!"

Bloody spittle must have hit Vaughn's face, but he didn't flinch, at least not that Nadia could tell.

"I don't care."

"That wasn't me. "

His hesitation was slight, and wary. "What are you talking about?"

"Your darling Sydney, it appears, isn't as much of a saint as either of us thought."

"Shut up."

Lauren laughed again, a bright, delighted sound that made Nadia shiver. She raised the gun a fraction of an inch. But Lauren wasn't watching her; she was laughing, still, looking at Vaughn.

"What did Sydney tell you? That I took the artifact and had her kidnapped? That she was asleep the whole time, blissfully unconscious, until Jack rescued her?"

_Last year_, Nadia realized. _She's talking about last year_. Before Sydney had found her. _She's talking about the disk_.

"I took the artifact. But I took it as Sydney. Did they seal the records? Change the facts? Jack Bristow always was thorough."

"Shut up," Vaughn said again, shaking her. But his voice sounded sick. Nadia wondered what he knew that she did not, what he had questioned of Sydney's story, and what he now knew he should have that he hadn't. What sense, she wondered, was Lauren making of all his doubts? Because Nadia didn't understand any of it—but she recognized the weakness in Vaughn's voice, the tremble of it.

"I was incarcerated, in Irina's custody. It was Sydney you met. Sydney who—what was it? Handcuffed you to a ladder and shoved her tongue down Julian's throat?" Another bubble of laughter escaped her pale, slender throat. "How delightful."

Vaughn was shaking.

Sincerely, Lauren said, "I'm so very pleased to be the one to tell you."

He hit her again.

Through the blood, she asked, "Is she with him right now? Is that why she isn't here with you?"

Vaughn slammed her back against the wall, harder this time, so hard Nadia imagined Lauren's teeth must have rattled in her skull. Nadia feared he might do something worse, something irreversible. But he just said, "That's not why I'm here."

And for the first time, Lauren looked worried.

"I know why you were assigned to me," Vaughn went on, voice rough, and Nadia felt that same shiver again in her belly. "I know who you really work for."

"You know nothing," Lauren said. And in that moment, Nadia saw good in her: strength, sacrifice, resilience. But it was fleeting; Lauren's mouth twisted, making her ugly once again, as she said, "You've always been somebody's fool. Whose are you now?"

"Not yours." There was so little space between them light couldn't get through. One of his thighs nearly pressed between hers. Her breasts in the black vest brushed up against his chest. Neither seemed to notice.

Vaughn said, "Tell me how to find Bill Vaughn."

Nadia kept her gun hand still only by extreme force of will. _Bill Vaughn_. Vaughn's father?

That's who they'd been looking for, this whole time. Lauren was only a means to an end, Elena only a means to Lauren.

_And you?_ a small, vicious voice asked in the back of her mind. _What were you?_

A means to Elena. She knew that. She hated it, but at least, now, she knew it.

_And what are you now?_

"What makes you think I know?" Lauren demanded of Vaughn—a weak denial of knowledge, but a safe course for her to take. The one Nadia would have, in her position.

"He was the one who sent you to watch me, after Sydney died. Not the Covenant."

Lauren's laughter was high and light. "Did he really."

"Don't fuck with me, Lauren." Vaughn's voice was tight.

"I wonder . . . who told you that? That it was your father that sent me? Was it Elena Derevko?" Her eyes shifted suddenly, and fell on Nadia—her stance, the gun she held low with both hands—and Nadia felt exposed all the way through, as if the other woman could read her very DNA. Lauren said, with relish, "So, this is the Passenger."

Nadia's eyes narrowed. Her insides tightened with the moniker. The one she'd never wanted. The one that meant she'd have to fight her sister. The one that meant being out of control of her own life. The one that took away her choices.

"Did she offer me, tell you I was a way to your father, in exchange for _her_?" Lauren asked Vaughn, but her eyes never left Nadia. "Nadia, wasn't it? Nadia . . . Derevko? Or is it Sloane?"

"Santos," Nadia snapped, and in that instant of speech, the tension in the room shifted to include her, to swallow her up, to make her full partner in the drama unfolding before her.

Lauren smiled—slowly, thoughtfully, a gleam taking form in her pale, limpid eyes. It made Nadia want to shudder, but she couldn't, not with Lauren's eyes on her, not with the other woman watching her. She held her ground, refused to look away. She would not be cowed.

"I'll help you find your father, Michael," Lauren purred, still looking at Nadia. "But first, I want to talk to her."


	16. Part Sixteen

**Part Sixteen**

_But first, I want to talk to her._

"Fine."

"What?" Nadia demanded, staring at him incredulously.

"She has to agree," Lauren said, lips smirking. Her body was supple, yielding, under Vaughn's grip, her scent familiarly intoxicating—ratcheted up several notches from the hint she'd always worn with him, that would hit him at rare moments: as she'd smiled up at him on their wedding day, as she'd bent over his shoulder at the rotunda, when she'd leaned into him at the club just before he'd felt Sark's gun at the base of his spine. Except that hadn't been her, Lauren had said. _It had been Sydney._

She was just trying to throw him off his guard. She'd always been good at reading him; she was just using that, hitting him where she'd known it would hurt. _Sydney and Sark?_ He'd noticed the way they'd worked together, before, at the warehouse, Sydney's cry of Sark's name when Elena's gun had gone off—but he'd known she was using him to find Nadia (he knew he was the one responsible for her having to go to him), he didn't think . . . . Well, yes, he'd thought, but he'd assumed he was imagining things, that his betrayal by Lauren—with Sark, of all people, insult added to the injury of her duplicity—had made him see things that weren't there. He'd never mentioned it. It made him feel stupid just thinking it. But now he wondered. And it made him sick.

_Stop it_, he ordered himself.

There was no way. Sydney would _never_ kiss Sark. She'd never . . . she'd just never.

But the rest of it fit. There'd been so much about her kidnapping the year before that hadn't added up. Things she'd known afterwards, the behavior of the woman he'd thought was Lauren at lunch the day Sydney had disappeared. He wished he'd paid better attention, wished he'd questioned it. The lock on the hospital transport had been broken from the inside; he remembered that from the first report, the one on-scene, which he'd insisted on receiving. It hadn't been in the other ones, and wouldn't be now, he was sure of it. Jack Bristow was, as Lauren had said, thorough.

"What are you thinking of, Michael?" Lauren all but crooned. "Your precious Sydney, in Julian's bed?"

His hands tightened around her neck. She'd bruise. He wished she'd do more than bruise. He wished more than he'd ever wished anything that she would die. It made him crazy just to have to look at her. But he needed her.

"You're not helping your case," he gritted.

"He's an excellent lover, you know," Lauren continued, her eyes glinting in what he almost would have called a sadistic sort of pleasure. "He knows how to take his time with a woman. Knows how to make her scream. Have you ever made Sydney scream, Michael?"

_Bitch. Fucking traitorous little—_ He didn't care that he needed her to find his father. He'd kill her. Right now. And then he'd never have to hear anything come out of that ugly, swollen mouth again. All he had to do was—

"Vaughn." Nadia's voice was sharp, biting through his homicidal reverie. He had to fight his way back to clarity. Lauren's mouth was closed but he could tell she was laughing. Her eyes were full of scorn.

Nadia said, "I'll talk to her."

_Nadia_. He turned to glance at her over his shoulder: gun still leveled at Lauren's shoulder, her hair tumbling dark and free, her expression neutral but her eyes intense. She looked like Irina Derevko. And like Sydney. And like herself—she had a fire different from her mother's cool composure, from her sister's heat. _Sydney_.

What had he done? This was insane. All of this was insane. He'd wake up any moment now and he would never have done any of this: never made a deal with Elena Derevko, never betrayed Sydney, never put Nadia through this. He'd almost forgotten Nadia was there. She shouldn't have been. She should've been safe with Sydney, back in L.A. She should've been—

No, he realized with a sickly start. She should have been with Elena Derevko and Arvin Sloane. She should have been being subjected to whatever they had intended for her. Because that's what he'd sentenced her to, making this trade. He got lucky—that was the only reason he didn't have her death, or worse, on his hands.

And now she was helping him. He released Lauren, and took a step back, careful not to break Nadia's line of sight. Why was she helping him?

"How _do_ you inspire such loyalty in women?" Lauren wondered, echoing his thoughts. She lifted one hand to her neck, gingerly touching the reddened skin there. He felt a surge of satisfaction at that if nothing else. "Though I suppose you never did inspire it in me."

"Shut up," Nadia hissed. "You got what you wanted. I'll talk to you."

Lauren looked her up and down, critically—almost insultingly—and Vaughn felt himself getting angry again.

He'd brought her here. He was responsible for her.

"Lauren," he snapped irritably, "either say what you want to say or leave her alone."

Lauren shot her eyes over to him, and laughed. She turned to Nadia. "I think someone has a bit of a crush," she confided girlishly, and Nadia flushed, mouth set angrily.

Lauren's own curled in amusement; it was revolting. "I'll need to talk to Sydney's baby sister alone, of course," she said.

He snorted. "You can't seriously believe—"

"She can keep the gun," Lauren continued dismissively. "That hardly matters. Besides, I'm sure Nadia is capable of taking care of herself. Aren't you, darling?"

"Let's just get this over with," Nadia said.

His mouth tightened. "I agree."

This was just a power play. Lauren was doing this just because she could. That was fine. She could have this point—he'd let her win this battle—as long as he got what he needed from her in the end.

He looked once more to Nadia, who had lowered her gun but kept the safety disengaged and the weapon ready, and then turned for the door.

"Michael," Lauren called, and God, he hated how she said his name—the mocking in it, the spite—"don't you think you ought to check me for weapons first?"

He gritted his teeth, struggling to reign himself in before he turned around. She wanted to make this difficult? Fine. Two could play at that game.

He stalked over to where she stood, calmly, waiting for him. She lifted her arms away from her body gracefully and, carefully, he began to pat her down—he lingered in the places he knew she liked, paying on her sensitivities. It revolted him as much as it aroused him, the two twisting together, each one shot inextricably through the other, as he brushed the sides of her breasts (_swollen in his hands, peaks sensitive to his tongue_), her lower back (_the arch of it as she rode him, head thrown back in ecstasy_), the insides of her thighs (_the silk of the skin pressed against his hips_).

Her breath was hot on his cheek. "Find anything?" she inquired, voice stiff. He could see the jump of her pulse at her neck, the flush on her cheeks that was evidence of her arousal. It pleased him, in a vicious way. She wasn't superhuman. She was just a woman, like he was just a man.

"She's clean," he reported coldly, then stepped back.

The look in Lauren's eyes was murderous. "If you're finished," she said, words clipped and cold.

"I'm coming back in ten minutes," he said. He turned to Nadia. "I'll be right outside the door. If she tries anything—"

"I'll shout." Nadia didn't look at him.

"Thank you," he said to her, voice low, after a brief hesitation.

She didn't respond, and so, with a last warning look at Lauren, he stepped out of the room.

-

"She comes with us," Nadia said, expression shuttered.

She and Lauren had emerged from the bedroom a full minute short of the time limit he'd threatened. The gun he'd given Nadia was tucked into the waistband of her slacks. Behind her, Lauren looked smug.

"What?" He had trouble believing he'd heard her correctly. The plan was to find Lauren, get his father's location from her using whatever means were necessary, and get out of there as quickly as possible. Not that he'd shared that plan with Nadia. Not that she was supposed to be any part of this at all. "Nadia, no."

"We need her to get to Bill Vaughn."

"She doesn't need to come with us for that."

The thought of spending any more time with the woman made him insane. More insane than Nadia had to be, to be considering this. What had Lauren said to her? And why was it "we" now? He'd kidnapped her, for God's sake. He deserved every bit of vitriol, and blame, and difficulty she could throw his way. He deserved worse than that. He had to do it, he'd made his choice; he'd hated it but he'd done it.

The ten minutes Nadia had been closed in with Lauren had been the longest he could remember—it was the first time he'd really been forced to think since he had escaped from Elena's compound. Since then he'd been focused on finding Lauren, on the next step closer to finding his father. Nadia had been there, asleep on the seat across from him, and he'd watched her: the even line of her brow, the dark shadow of her lashes on the smoothness of her cheeks. Her chest had risen evenly with each breath, her mouth softly parted. Young. Pretty. The picture of peaceful innocence. He'd dwelled on her appearance so he didn't have to think about why she was there, about why they both were. But now he didn't have anything to plan for, no next step to go over obsessively in his mind. He had to wait.

Waiting, he hadn't been able to escape the enormity of what he'd done, how much his life had changed. He couldn't ever go back. To find his father, he'd sacrificed everything he'd worked for his entire life. His work. His friends. Sydney. He'd known that all along. He'd been sick with it since he'd chosen to take Elena's deal, but he'd been ready for it, or as ready as he could be. This—his guilt towards Nadia, the shame that her presence evoked—this he hadn't accounted for. Because he had never expected to have to see her again. At least not like this. Not every moment of every day, a constant physical reminder of what he'd done. And maybe it should've made a difference that she was okay, that Elena was dead and Nadia was safe. But it didn't. Because now he was just tormented with what could have happened, and that it felt like a grace he did not deserve.

Nadia's response was slow to register: "I think she does."

He turned on Lauren. "What did you say to her?"

Lauren clucked her tongue. "Temper, sweetheart. That's between her and me. Don't you trust your partner?"

Angry, he gritted, "She's not my partner."

"I am now."

Nadia. He looked back at her, and she returned his look coldly. He'd never seen her look that way—as if all of her heat, her anger, her fire, had been distilled, cooled, solidified into stone. She finished, "And she's coming with us."

"You're not in charge here." His voice had risen

"Oh no?" Her brows sharpened as they raised. "I have the gun. I have the advantage."

He scowled. His guilt almost made him give in to her, and that made him even angrier. "Do you really think that I couldn't—"

"As delightful as this is," Lauren interrupted, and both their heads swirled towards her where she leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed, looking bored, "if we want to get there by morning, and ensure he'll still be there, we really should be leaving."

-

A train again.

Lauren looked cool and somewhat disgusted, Nadia distracted, and Vaughn was on edge, his jaw starting to ache from gritting his teeth for so long. He hated every thing about this. He hated everything about _her_. Her scent, her hair, her face. The way he still wanted her: violently, viciously, with a desire more about pain than sex. It was ugly, and he hated it. He hated that he had that in him. He hated that she had brought him to this.

Nadia was watching him. Her eyes were dark and unreadable, and made him burn with shame—emptied him of the violence and replaced it with guilt. With the need to do penance. To protect her. It warred with the hate inside him, exhausting him. To the point where he was too tired to argue. Nadia thought they needed Lauren, in person, to get access to Bill Vaughn. Fine. But after that . . . after that, he'd kill her.

If he could.

He shifted seats from beside Lauren to Nadia's left, and leaned in to her. "I wish you would tell me what we're doing. Where we're going."

"Not a good feeling, is it," Nadia said neutrally, eyes straight ahead.

He deserved that. That wasn't even a question. But whether he deserved it or not didn't change the fact that they were a weaker team—and she'd been the one to call them a team, to call them partners, not him—with one of them in the dark.

"This isn't about feelings. This is about doing this right, and not getting killed." He kept his voice urgent, and low. Lauren flicked an amused, pursed-lip glance at them before returning to what she'd been doing since they'd boarded, which was ignoring them. "I need to know what she told you."

"No," Nadia said, "you don't."

"Try kissing her," Lauren drawled. "It always worked on you."

Fury choked him. "Did they have to give you special training to be this much of a bitch, or is that all just natural talent?" he sniped.

Nadia looked at him, then at Lauren, and then abruptly stood and stalked towards the door. The fury had faded as quickly as it had risen, and he was left feeling like a jackass, and an idiot. Lauren looked smug, but she rarely looked anything else now, he'd noticed. He pushed up from his own seat, and followed Nadia out into the corridor.


	17. Part Seventeen

**Part Seventeen**

Nadia's head hurt.

A week ago, she'd been happy. A week ago, she'd been living with her sister, working with people she'd begun to consider friends, and helping make the world a little safer.

A week ago, she'd known nothing.

Now . . . now she might not know everything, but she knew how little she'd known before: about herself, about Sydney, about who controlled them. And she knew that she needed to get to the bottom of it.

It was Lauren who had made it clear to her, though she shouldn't have had to. She should have understood the moment she woke tied to that chair, the grim lines of Michael Vaughn's face wavering in the match light, or if not then, when she'd seen Sofia—_Elena_—and her father, seen Eric Weiss fall by her own shaking hand. This was bigger than her. And if she had any hope of making it out of it alive and sane and whole, she needed to take control. She needed to find out as much as she could. And that meant finding the man who'd rescued her—_stolen her_—from Soviet Custody and from her mother, the man who'd delivered her into Elena's hands and who (Lauren claimed) would help her, so long as she kept his son close: William Vaughn.

That son shared the train car that carried her into a less passive future, with the same goal, finding his father, but different reasons. Reasons she didn't know and didn't really care to, but needed to all the same.

She wondered if Bill Vaughn looked like him. If he had the same well-lined brow and hook-ended nose, rangy physique and deep-set green eyes. If he'd know her on sight the way Lauren had. But these thoughts were sentimental, and she couldn't afford to be sentimental. Not now.

She closed her eyes, but that didn't block out her thoughts, or the image of Michael Vaughn slouched tiredly, grimly, in the seat across from hers. Or the way that every time she thought of him, since they'd left Lauren's hotel room, she got hot.

She chastised herself: _This is your sister's boyfriend_. She tried again: _This is the man who kidnapped you, drugged you, and got you into this mess_.

It didn't help. Her sensible cotton bikini underwear was damp and underneath it, she burned. She worked not to shift in her seat, not to betray her shame.

_It's just been too long since . . . ._ (She stopped herself before she thought his name, but the residual pang of grief washed over her, turned her stomach inside out before settling low in her belly, anyway.) The last week had been unnaturally stressful, besides, all her senses constantly heightened. And she was cooped up in the same train compartment with the man and his wife, who clearly hated each other but who just as clearly knew each other more intimately—emotionally, sexually—than she suspected she'd ever managed to know anyone. The tension between them buzzed, hot and ready, and Nadia had the impression that, without her presence to keep them in check, they might have been fucking each other viciously against the compartment door by now.

And Nadia couldn't stop the rush of heat that came with the image, the idea of Michael Vaughn's back, the hiss of his breath, because instead of Lauren it was her, Nadia, pinned against the plastic, his body pressing into hers.

_But it shouldn't be. It should be Sydney_. And that thought finally, thankfully, brought her up short, let her focus again on the problem at hand.

Bill Vaughn. And what he knew about the Passenger.

They'd been in transit from the hotel to the train station—Vaughn driving and Nadia curled up in the passenger seat with one eye on Vaughn and the other on Lauren, seated in the back with hands and feet both securely bound—when Vaughn had broken the silence.

"Why the Covenant?"

To Nadia, the silence afterwards had felt as long, as immutable, as the silence that had proceeded it, but in the middle, out of nowhere, Lauren had replied, "What do you mean?"

Her voice had reminded Nadia of where she should have been looking, and her eyes, which had focused solely on Vaughn since his unexpected question, shifted back to Lauren. Her tied hands lay primly on her lap, and her eyes and hair shone in the passing streetlights.

"If you were working for my father, why were you working for the Covenant, too?" And even as he asked, he seemed to grasp the answer to his own question. His fingers tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles were white. "The Covenant came later, didn't it. After Sydney showed up alive."

"Did you just figure that out?" Her tone dripped with sarcasm.

"Then it was never me."

A hint of teeth gleamed in Lauren's brief, vicious smile. "Does that hurt your feelings?"

But Vaughn was, for the moment at least, beyond such petty insults. He'd pulled back into himself: Nadia could see it in the deepened creases between his brows, in the way his shoulders slumped.

He said, "Then why did my father send you at all?"

There was silence on Lauren's side this time, a long pause in which Lauren's struggle felt plain. Finally, with difficulty, she said, "He wanted to make sure you were alright."

"So he sent you to marry me?" Vaughn snapped, incredulous, incensed.

"I was supposed to see how you were, not marry you," Lauren snapped back. "I wish now I'd just left you there in that drugged, drunken stupor to choke on your own vomit."

The rest of the drive was silent, and fraught with tension. Did Vaughn believe her? Nadia wondered. Did _she_? What did it mean that Bill Vaughn had sent someone to seduce and marry his own son, if he truly had? What did it mean that he'd sent someone to him at all? Was it out of concern, or was there, as Lauren had intimated, some other motivation at work?

The deeper questions: Was Bill Vaughn a man who cared for his son? Or was he another Elena Derevko (it hurt Nadia, deeply, to think of her, to believe what had been confirmed for her about her aunt's interests, but it hurt even more, still, to know that the woman she had loved as a mother was dead), only pretending in order to fulfill a larger purpose? The answers mattered. The answers would determine her next move.

She was mulling this over, playing out possibilities, when Vaughn moved from his seat and slid into the one next to her. He leaned towards her to speak; his breath was warm, and the scent of him momentarily disorienting. "I wish you would tell me what we're doing. Where we're going."

"Not a good feeling, is it." She kept her eyes directed ahead, struggling with her response to him. If she was stiff, he'd blame it on anger. He'd be half correct, even now, even as her body responded to the close proximity of his.

"This isn't about feelings," he said urgently, and his tone, that pulled at her as well. "This is about doing this right, and not getting killed."

He was right. She knew that. She just hated it.

He pressed, "I need to know what she told you."

_He needs to know what_ she _told you_. Her jaw clenched. So did her fists.

"No," she snapped, "you don't."

"Try kissing her," Lauren drawled at Vaughn from across the car, startling Nadia almost out of her anger. "It always worked on you."

It pulled Vaughn's attention away from her, and for that she was both furious, and glad. His voice was sour as he shot back, "Did they have to give you special training to be this big of a bitch, or is that all just natural talent?"

That was it. That was . . . . That was all she could take. She got tightly to her feet, and headed straight for the door. She needed space. She needed air. She needed . . . something. But Vaughn was following her into the corridor, and so she wasn't going to get it.

"Hey. Nadia," he said.

She kept walking

"Nadia, I'm sorry."

His hand on her arm shocked her; she whirled on him, knocking it off. "_What_?" she demanded. "What do you want?" She was almost shaking, she realized. She fisted her hands again to hide it.

The concern in his eyes tightened at her tone, his face becoming blank. _Good_, she thought. "Nadia, tell me what's going on here."

"What's going on here is that I'm helping you find your father," she said sharply.

He grimaced. It was almost, but not quite, an apology. "It's not that I don't appreciate it—"

"Clearly, you don't."

"—but we need to talk about Lauren. About the plan." Urgently, he said, "She's trying to drive us apart. For her own benefit. You see that, right? We have to trust each other."

"Fine," Nadia said. She pressed her lips together, and crossed her arms. She would at least use the opportunity she'd been given. "You want me to trust you? Why don't you start by telling me the truth."

He frowned. "I don't know what you mean."

"You let me think all of this was to find Lauren and it wasn't. It was about your father, the whole time. And I want to know why." She lifted her chin slightly and wished, not for the first time, that she had a few more inches of height.

Understanding came into his eyes then—he'd honestly forgotten she didn't know, she realized, and she would have laughed if the idea wasn't so horrifying. He'd forgotten.

Then he shifted his eyes to each side, and said, "Wouldn't this be a conversation better held . . . elsewhere?"

"Like where?" she challenged. "The dining car? Or back in there, with your ex-wife, perhaps?"

They both looked to the car on her left, his right; it was empty.

His expression was dark as he closed the door behind him, and she felt a surge of satisfaction at the reaction she'd elicited. He gestured to the seat.

"I'd rather stand," she said, and he replied, "Fine." The train rattled on along the tracks underneath them.

He said, "If I tell you why I'm looking for William Vaughn, you tell me what Lauren told you in that hotel room. Deal?"

"Deal," she agreed readily. She'd told Lauren she wouldn't—if she took Lauren at her word, then it was in her best interest not to—but as unpredictable as Vaughn had proved, trusting Lauren was still the less intelligent move.

"Do you remember the man that contacted me a few months back, who said he had proof my father was alive?"

"Of course." Nadia kept her face even, expressionless, and her arms crossed. He didn't notice; he was too wrapped up in the story, in how he would tell it, in what it would say. His pupils were over-large, and his eyes unfocused. He looked dangerous, slightly unhinged. If she had been a normal woman, she might have been afraid.

"He worked for Elena. And he did have proof—or Elena did. Pictures of my father. Alive. Reading the newspaper, talking on his cell phone." He paused, though whether for effect or to gather himself back together, she didn't know. "I wanted to be hurt, and angry. But I wasn't. I was thrilled, just knowing he was alive. And then Elena told me: she'd help me find him. She'd lead me right to him. If I gave her you."

"And you agreed." He hadn't said anything she hadn't expected, but there was the fury again, building inside her, far brighter now than it had been before the hotel room, before Lauren's revelations.

"No! I told her . . ." and here he looked almost ashamed, "I told her I couldn't do that to Sydney. To Sydney's sister."

_Sydney's sister_. Nadia took a deep breath in, held it, released it.

"So she told me about Lauren. About him . . . sending her to me. She showed me documents, phone records and emails that proved he was working against the US government. That he was involved with Rambaldi groups who wanted to use Sydney for their own ends. It would have been like the Covenant for her, all over again. Except . . . except worse.

"What I wouldn't do for the love of my father, she knew—she must have known—I would for Sydney's safety. And because I was . . . angry. At my father, for not being the man I thought he was. She offered me the deal again, and I took it." His eyes held such misery that she felt something sharp answer in her chest. "I'm sorry, Nadia. I can't tell you how sorry I am."

She sat down.

She wanted to blame him. She wanted to blame him _so much_. For her kidnapping. For Lauren. For all of it. Nothing in his story had excused him, nothing in the facts. But hearing him speak it, seeing the torment on his face . . . he wasn't any more to blame than she was. Maybe he should have told Sydney, and Jack; maybe APO could have found Vaughn's father without Elena's help. And maybe she shouldn't have followed him at the warehouse, or agreed to talk to Lauren, or made him tell her this—because it was so much easier, not knowing, not understanding, just believing as she chose. These things were past; there was nothing either of them could do about them now. They had to go forward.

"Nadia?" She looked up from her hands, clasped tightly at her knees, and he was sitting across from her, the ends of her knees on either side of hers, maintaining as polite a distance as he could in the cramped car but still so close a hard bump would have brought his body into contact with her own.

"You have a part in the Rambaldi prophecies, too," Nadia told him numbly, looking into his eyes, feeling that her own were too much, too huge, that she might swallow him whole with everything she saw. And she wanted to, oh, she wanted to. "That's what Lauren told me. Or part of it."

Vaughn looked stunned.

She went on, "She doesn't think I can trust you, that you might pose some sort of danger to . . . ." Her breath stuttered. ". . . to the Passenger."

"_She_ doesn't think _you_ should trust _me_?" His voice was tight.

"I believe she'll take us to Bill Vaughn, if we let her. I don't think she trusts him anymore, if she ever did." Nadia breathed deeply; it felt like she was suffocating. "She wants him brought down."

He laughed, a short, sharp sound, like a gunshot. "Sure she does." Then he visibly stopped himself: held out a hand, closed his eyes as he let his head drop. "Okay. Wait. I'm sorry. This isn't helping."

He put his fingers to his temples as Nadia said, "They thought Lauren might be the Passenger, before. After they'd determined that Sydney wasn't, but before they were sure about me. That's why she was sent to you."

Lauren's anger, her focus, as she had told the story had felt genuine—too real, too raw, to be faked. Her bitterness had been too sharp, and it had given away more than Nadia suspected Lauren had intended.

Lauren hadn't known why she was being sent to check in on Michael Vaughn; she'd known almost nothing, other than the fact that she was, most likely, a person her mother and her superiors called "the Passenger," and that this indicated she was meant for great things. She'd discovered the real reason for her assignment, she'd said, after she learned that she was not, in fact, the prophesized Passenger—after she'd begun her affair with Sark, after her cover had been blown.

It had been a coup for Bill Vaughn, having the possible Passenger in his employ—as much a coup as it had been for Arvin Sloane, having the Chosen One in his. But Bill Vaughn, having soured on Rambaldi, hadn't sought to use the Passenger the way Sloane had Sydney; he'd sought to neutralize her. And the way to do that, certain prophecies indicated, was through his son: Michael Vaughn.

Nadia knew now that Lauren had loved Vaughn. And that she had been felt the loss of no longer being the Passenger not only in the way it released the weight, the pressure, from her shoulders, but in the loss of stature, of importance. She was just another girl now, one who had lost everything.

Nadia would have given anything to be just another girl. She almost had been.

"Your father knows about Elena's work," Nadia said quietly. "I need to know more—I need to know exactly who all these people think I am, and what horrible or wonderful thing I'm supposed to do." _And what you have to do with it_, she added silently, but did not voice it. He didn't need to know. Lauren had done him a kindness, by not telling him. Or else she wanted to let Bill Vaughn do it. Which one, Nadia wondered, would hurt more?

He didn't respond. She steeled herself, and continued, "It's not just me, Michael. It's Sydney, too." She'd saved this for last, and it hurt her to use it, but for this, she would. "If I'm supposed to kill her . . . I need to know how Sydney's involved. I need to know how to stop it."

There was a long, heavy silence, and then Vaughn looked up at her, gaze ragged but mouth set. She breathed an internal sigh of relief as he spoke: "Tell me what I can do to help."


	18. Part Eighteen

**Part Eighteen**

Sydney woke without the heat of Sark's body against her own. She stretched, cataloguing the small sorenesses from sequential nights of exertion, the sensitivity of her breasts. And frowned at his absence.

_How did I get here?_ she wondered, shaking her head and sitting up.

No, she knew how she'd gotten there. She remembered too clearly the day after their first . . . physical truce . . . when she'd ended up crying in his arms. It had been healing, just being held. It was something she wouldn't have allowed from anyone else—from her father, who, without Vaughn, it seemed was the only person she had left—but after what had happened, it seemed okay. It seemed natural. And as many times as Sark may have double crossed her, or the people she worked for, professionally, he'd always been honest with her emotionally. She was the one who had used their . . . _connection_ . . . the year before to betray him. And he had made it more than clear that his assistance in finding Nadia was personal; it wasn't business. Though she wondered if that would change, depending on what they found: Sloane's interrogation had already told them this had to do with Rambaldi, and Sark's association with Rambaldi went back further, she suspected, than she knew. She wondered, as she often did with him, how much longer she'd be able to trust him.

They'd spent that next day working side by side, him silent and inscrutable as ever, her gnawed to pieces inside with doubts and recriminations, and not a little self-loathing. And that night, after dinner, after a mostly fruitless day of research during which she had spent far too much time wondering whether this meant he'd gotten what he'd wanted from her now—if she'd be sleeping alone that night—he'd poured a glass of wine for her, and one for himself, and went out onto the balcony, leaving the door open for her to follow. Warily, she had.

"My favorite part," he'd said vaguely, "of living out here is the quiet."

Sydney waited, arms crossed protectively over her chest, for him to go on. When she'd worked with him at SD-6—when they'd worked together the year before—his pauses were always for effect. When he paced his words, when he appeared pensive, hesitant, thoughtful, it was only to heighten his words' weight. But this time it was as if he'd simply let himself lapse.

She said, "Sark, what are we doing out here?"

"I'm going to kiss you," he said, looking out at the grounds, the gently swaying trees, not at her. The low sound of his voice pulled at something in her. "It's not going to be the way it was last night." He paused again, and looked at her, and his eyes were hard. "Not for you."

She started, and drew her brows in, not sure whether she was ready to try and understand what he meant by "not for her"—what he meant, that it would be for him. Her stomach felt sick—but she wanted him to kiss her anyway.

"Sydney," he said, "give me your hand."

She gave it.

And he took it. She let herself be pulled to him, as he took his own step towards her, until they were close enough together that she could feel his body heat in the cool evening air. Their bodies were a breath away from one another. She tilted her head up, to face him, to bring her mouth nearer to his.

"You've lost someone you love," he murmured, and she didn't know which person exactly he was speaking of and it didn't, for the moment, matter. "Let me help you."

She'd spent every night since in his bed.

So far as Sydney could tell, the man never slept. After that first morning she had yet to catch Sark with his eyes closed, let alone unconscious. When she woke in the morning, he was sometimes on the balcony, sometimes by her side, sometimes elsewhere in the house.

As he was, it turned out, today. She brushed her teeth and pulled on drawstring pants and a tank before going looking for him. On the way, she stopped in the kitchen, poured herself coffee and checked her FTP site for the files a contact in Italy had promised. Nothing yet. _It's better that they're proving more difficult to get ahold of_, she reminded herself, stirring in sugar before reading the daily check-in from her father.

When she finally found Sark, it was in a room off the gym, it's surface covered in the same springy flooring that covered the state of the art gym's but softer, somewhat more yielding beneath her bare feet. She tested it with one foot and then her full weight, but it made no sound. Still, somehow he sensed her.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked, his back to her and his legs crossed Indian style. He wore a thin white t-shirt and charcoal pants, and his hair was still softly ruffled from sleep. He didn't turn to look at her.

"I would have slept better with you there," she answered, because it was true and because with his back turned it was easy for her to admit it. Carefully, she circled him, moving through the room until she could see his face. "What are you doing?"

"Meditating." His eyes were closed, his body at rest. He looked peaceful—something very different than the neutral expression he quite often wore in the field. "I'm using an old technique your mother taught me when I was young."

Something in his words surprised her, and it took her a few moments to realize it was that he'd mentioned her mother. He never did that, not if she didn't bring it up first—which she'd done, more to test him than out of real curiosity (though of course she felt that too), a handful of times over the last few days. She regarded him for a long moment, before asking, "Will you show me?"

He smiled just slightly, but it made his pleasure in her words clear. "Of course." He gestured to a spot on the floor several feet in front of him. "Please."

She lowered herself carefully, and crossed her legs as well.

He opened his eyes, and they were a dreamy, quiet blue. "Like this," he said, indicating his arms, their position on his legs, and she replicated the position, allowing her tailbone to sink into the floor and the muscles of her shoulders, with difficulty, to release.

He smiled at her. "Breathe into your stomach, letting the breath then expand up into your chest."

"So far," Sydney observed, "this is yoga."

He studied her, forearms turned outwards and wrists slack against his knees, and suddenly, inexplicably, she felt the need to shy away from his gaze, something she'd never felt with him before. She'd spent so much time facing him, fighting him, back when it was too dangerous to turn away and beneath her dignity besides, and so much time since she'd come here open to him, letting him see depths of her vulnerabilities first because she'd been too destroyed not to and then because she'd wanted him—needed him—too much to do anything else.

He asked, "Do you trust me?"

She shifted uneasily, but forced herself not to look away. It was a good question. She chose to dodge it. "Do _you_ trust _me_?"

There was a long pause, and then: "When I was a child," he said calmly, "my father beat me. My mother was a fragile woman who barely took up any space in his presence—so little, in fact, that there wasn't enough of her to hate, only pity—and because of this and her misguided devotion to him, she either could not or would not do anything to stop him. I believe I was two when he truly began in earnest, and nearly seven before I realized other children's daddies did not burn them with the ends of their cigars when they spoke out of turn or pinch their small arms hard enough to bruise when they woke them crying in the middle of the night."

"Sark," she said, but he shook his head and she fell silent.

"I left home when I was twelve, leaving behind an atrocious trail of tortured neighborhood dogs and playmates who bore visible injuries and worse from my fickle affections. The first time I killed a man I was twelve and a half, and I squeezed my hands tight around his throat until he could no longer draw a breath. The man had had the unfortunate luck of reminding me of my father. But after that, I didn't even require my victims to bear a resemblance. My methods were crude but effective. I developed . . . a bit of a reputation, you could say. For being quite the little—what is it you've called me?—ah, yes. Sociopath."

"Why are you telling me this?" she asked him (_why are you telling me these horrible things about you when I've only barely accepted how much I could care about you?_), and a hint of her dis-ease may have seeped into her voice because he smiled thinly, sadness in his eyes.

"I'm answering your question," he replied.

She noted the flush that had crept up his chest above the t-shirt collar, a sign of agitation though his tone and voice remained calm and even, even light.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Go on."

"Little Julian Lazarey was a slick, skinny child with hard eyes and fast fingers, and all the remorse of the devil himself. Reckless, but talented enough that it didn't matter. That's how your mother found me: erratic, unstable, but very, very good. The first thing she taught me was control. 'Know your emotions,' she told me, 'but also know that they are the ficklest, most malleable thing about you, and thus the weakest foundation from which to act. They are your tool; you are not theirs.' And then she showed me this." He moved his hand to indicate his cross-legged position.

"And it . . .worked?" _Worked_ didn't seem like the right word, even as Sydney said it. He'd been . . . sick. Abused, damaged. Possibly a little insane. The image of the little boy he'd been—it made her shiver, it made her hurt, and it made her afraid. Because that boy, that tiny, furious killer, was still inside him. Of course he was, just like the little girl who cried every night because her daddy didn't come home again was still inside her, no matter what she knew now or how much she had, if not changed, then come to deal with her feelings of betrayal, of abandonment, in better, more constructive ways.

It made her sorry, as well. She had worked with Andrian Lazarey. She didn't remember it, but it was clear that she had. That he had been fond of her, willing to go beyond what was best for himself in order to protect her. She wondered if he had ever regretted what he'd done to his son. If he even thought he had done anything wrong.

Sark's grim smile was tolerant. "In time. I am not the man now I was a year ago, or three. And that man, while closer to the person I am now than the boy I was, still bore more resemblance to him than I do now. What this exercise taught me was reflection. It allowed me the space to consider my motivations and choose my actions despite them. For some people its benefit is physical—the value of external stillness, the better to understand the motion of their body. I learned to understand the motion of my mind."

"Sark," she said softly, for a second time, "why are you telling me this?"

"Because I choose to trust you, Sydney," he said calmly, looking her directly in her eyes, "and someday hope that you will choose to trust me."

A sad smile flickered across her lips. His face, in its intensity and its acceptance, was beautiful, and she let herself wonder for a moment who he would have been in a different life, one with loving parents, with an easy childhood. And then it hit her at once how deeply her mother had shaped them both: Sydney by her absence, Sark by her presence. She'd always thought her mother had destroyed Sark, to make him into the cool, controlled assassin in front of her, but instead she had saved him. Irina could have done nothing about Julian Lazarey's childhood, but she had taken that child and, yes, used him, but also turned him into someone capable of, if not practiced at, taking care of another person—of being, in some small way, selfless. But most fundamentally, of doing something other than hurting other people. Irina had played on his need for love, but turned it into the capacity for what Sydney was beginning to believe was, against all odds, a kind of loyalty. Her father had told her that Sark had freed Lauren before intercepting her and the Rambaldi disk; she hadn't been able to understand why, before. She did, now.

She scooted closer to him, reached out her hands and took his in her own. "Show me how," she said.

He said, "I'd rather kiss you," and she answered, "Then show me that instead."

She let her eyes close as he slid his thumb along the curve of her cheek and leaned into her mouth. The first touch of his lips on hers was feather-light, and she felt rather than saw his eyelashes flutter closed. His fingers threaded through her hair as she parted her lips to let him in, and the softness of his tongue nearly made her weep—she hadn't known she'd been so close to tears: for him, for herself, for the world they had made for themselves and the one that was the alternative: a short, brutal life of endless, thoughtless killing for him, and for her death or subjugation at the hands of Rambaldi followers from whom, without Project Christmas, without SD-6's training, she'd have no way to defend herself. This world wasn't a _good_ one, it wasn't one she would have chosen—but it was so much better than the alternative.

He tugged her, gently, pulling her to straddle his lap, and she could feel his arousal hard against the center seam of her pants. "Sydney," he breathed, and she shuddered.

It must have pleased him, it usually did, but his lips didn't curve in the satisfied way she was used to, he just kissed her harder, pushing his tongue deeper, tilting her head further back, and she felt dizzy from it. Her hands moved to the waistband of his pants—a finer cotton than any she'd ever owned, as much a luxury as his skin—and her fingers slid beneath. Before she could push him down to work them off his hips, he levered her up to close his mouth over one cloth-covered nipple. She arched.

_I'm glad you told_ _me_, she wanted to say. Instead, she let him lay her back onto the floor, push up her shirt, strip off her pants.

Their fingers were linked, her arms bent pressed over her head and her hair loose around her face as she looked up at him. His stomach rippled as he moved against her, inside her, through her, but his eyes stayed on hers.

"I want to trust you, Sark," she whispered, feeling the stutter of his breath across her cheek. "Can I trust you?"

His body spasmed over hers. "I wish," he gasped, ground, thrust, "wish that you could."

"I want to," she repeated, and shifted to take him deeper. She closed her eyes. "Is that enough?"

It meant, _is that enough for you?_ and it meant, _is that enough for us?_ It meant, _can you be content with that?_ and it meant, _isn't it almost the same, if I want to trust you and you want me to do so—won't we act the same way we would if it were really true?_

His fingers squeezed hers. "Just this is enough. Sydney—"

His voice cut off as she squeezed him back, below, muscles fluttering around his cock, and he was coming, hard, burying his face in her neck while she wrapped her legs tighter around him to hold him to her. _Cherishing him_, she realized.

Whether she trusted him or not, there was something here between them—and it wasn't something she could be ashamed of anymore.

"What were you doing," she murmured later, curled up against him on the floor, "when my mother found you?"

He smiled, smoothing a few stray hairs from her forehead with one warm hand. "I was stealing her purse."

She looked up at him, startled, and then started to laugh. And after a few moments he began chuckling along with her.

"We'll try the meditation some other time," he said, kissing the top of her head.

"I know," she said, and turned her head to bury it against his chest. Her voice was muffled. "We have work to do."


	19. Part Nineteen

**Part Nineteen**

Back in the kitchen, the coffee was cold. Sydney wrinkled her nose, dumped the contents into the sink, and started over while Sark, still shirtless, booted his computer up in the next room. She pulled a bowl of fruit salad—papaya, blueberries, mango, and something she didn't recognize, perfectly sliced, courtesy of his housekeeping staff who she rarely if ever saw—from the fridge, and slid a couple of slices of bread into the toaster, trying to ignore the domesticity of her actions. Trying not to feel like a little girl playing house. This sort of thing sat awkwardly on her; it had since she'd come back to the CIA after her two-year absence, but that might have been largely thanks to the months she'd spent in her apartment by herself, eating take-out and frozen dinners. Since Nadia had moved in, her sister had done most of the cooking. And Sydney hadn't been home for many meals, anyway.

When the toast popped, she stacked the slices on a plate and took them and the fruit salad out to the table. "Coffee's still going," she explained, and Sark nodded absently, without looking at her. But the moment she had set the bowl down, his slender fingers reached out and deftly stole a blueberry.

"My contact at the French embassy sent me a series of image files early this morning," he said as she slid into the chair next to him. He glanced at her briefly, and smiled. "I've forwarded them to you to look at while I shower. Unless you'd consider joining me?"

"Not—not today." Now that they had reentered a work space—the difference between it and the more private spaces in his home was one she kept rigid in her mind, trying and failing to separate the personal from the professional—she felt awkward with the things she'd whispered in his arms, the concessions she'd made. She needed some time to recalibrate, to find her balance, and his skin, and his mouth, didn't help.

He nodded as if he understood, and pushed up from his chair. "It's likely nothing, but in case I'm incorrect, I'll be quick."

"You're always quick," she commented as she connected to her email to retrieve the file.

There was a smile in his voice. "I do hope that isn't a criticism of my performance."

"Just your hygiene," she shot back absently, and he chuckled.

He dropped a kiss on the top of her head as he reached for a slice of papaya. "See that you don't finish the whole bowl off while I'm gone, will you?"

She didn't answer, but she smiled to herself as she double-clicked the first image open.

The second batch of coffee that morning had been dumped down the drain, the bowl of fruit put back in the fridge, and her father notified by the time Sark returned from his shower. He stood in the doorway of the kitchen.

"You do realize there's no coffee in the pot."

"How soon can you get us plane tickets to France?" Sydney asked, scanning the last set of blue prints on screen. In the background, the printer was working audibly.

Something in his eyes sharpened, though his voice remained a lazy drawl. "Darling, did you want to have lunch in Paris? Because, really, Lyon is a much better choice."

She ignored him. "Two travelers matching Vaughn and Nadia's descriptions were spotted leaving an office building in downtown Avignon. The reason it was flagged, and the reason I presume your embassy contact sent them to you, was because of the woman they were with: blond, blue-eyed, British, about 5'8". Known Covenant ties."

_Lauren_. The name was taut between them as their eyes met.

"That little minx," Sark declared, sounding amused, and admiring, which made Sydney twitch slightly. Lauren didn't threaten her—not the way she used to, not anymore—but that didn't mean she appreciated hearing the person she was . . . with . . . using that tone when he talked about her. And she wasn't exactly pleased to have seen her with Vaughn, either. "I wonder what she's up to."

"Just book the flight, Sark," Sydney snapped, old habits snapping as harshly back into place, and he raised his eyebrows at her peevishness, disappearing back into the kitchen before she could apologize.

There wasn't time to wait for him, to wade through the awkwardness that apologizing would have meant, and so she didn't. She went upstairs to pack. But it jolted her that, even for an instant, she'd wanted to. Or—not wanted to, but felt as if it were important to. More important than speed, when her sister's life might very well be at risk.

But did she even believe that? She couldn't conceive, even now, of Vaughn hurting Nadia. She was furious with him, sickened by what he'd done, but even that couldn't obscure her knowledge that anything he'd done he would have believed necessary. There was so much she didn't know about the situation—and the gaps in her knowledge were maddening, any kind of conclusion elusive—but if Nadia was still well enough to walk out of a Paris office building of her own power, then Vaughn must have been protecting her as much as he was endangering her.

Sydney thought, against her will, of what Vaughn would have said about what _she_ was doing, here with Sark. Everything she was doing. She shook it away immediately, but the damage had been done, and by the time she finished packing (three of her more versatile aliases in one bag, plus her full kit of passports and matching identification, her standard choice for trips like this, where she wouldn't know what she'd need until the need arose), she was unsettled to the point of nearly forgetting her gun, she had to work so hard to keep from listening to the voice in the back of her head that was telling her how wrong this was, how far she'd fallen, just being willing to work with him. _I'm doing this for Nadia_, she told herself fiercely. She hadn't fallen; she'd made a smart, well-considered decision on how best to achieve her goals. And the sex . . . . The sex wasn't part of this. Except, of course, for the ways in which it was.

When she returned downstairs, he was waiting for her. "I secured seats on a commercial flight leaving in an hour."

"The airport is forty-five minutes away," she pointed out.

"Then I suggest that we make haste. The car is out front."

His tone was casual and light—it betrayed no hint of coolness, or hurt, or anger—but there was something different about it, something less intimate, less open, as if something in him had been smoothly and professionally closed off from her. Already unsteady from her thoughts of Vaughn, she found herself as uneasy with the change as she had been with the idea of the shower, earlier, and as she followed him out the front door and let him politely but impersonally hold the car door open for her as she slipped inside, she tried to steady her thoughts and regain some sort of hold on her emotions.

Was he—was he angry with her? The idea shocked her, not because anger would have been unwarranted, but because the thought of him being put out with her on a personal level wasn't anything that had ever entered her mind before. She'd been guarded, cautious, careful with her words, since she'd arrived—but that had been for her protection, always, never his. The idea that he should be protected, or could be, was stunning. And all of a sudden the sick feeling of guilt for her use of him that she'd been steadfastly refusing to acknowledge curled up in her stomach, made her ashamed.

She'd known coming here, asking Sark's help, would be complicated. After all, he'd never been one to make things easy. But she hadn't expected that the difficulty would come from her—that it would be her reactions that would be difficult to manage, her responses that remained impossible to reliably grasp. She didn't know how to handle this new dimension to their interaction. Sex had been difficult enough—this new dimension to her feelings toward him was worse.

"We'll be flying coach, despite my best efforts," Sark outlined for her as the car drove away from his estate's front gate, turning onto the street and heading for the main thoroughfare. "Row 23. Your ticket is in the name you traveled under before—Amelia Barinski. You'll collect it at the gate, since time will be short."

"Our seats are together?" Her tone came out more critical than she'd intended. It wasn't as if he was unaware of the risk them being seen together brought.

"Yes." He didn't elaborate. "You'll exit the car first. The driver will circle the airport twice before letting me off as well. That should minimize the likelihood that we be connected to one another."

"Unless anyone recognizes us, sitting next to each other while I'm not trying to take you into custody."

"I believe that's why you brought the bag?" He gestured towards where it lay at her feet, by the door. "Unless it's merely to hold your pajamas."

"Yes," she said on a bit of a hiss, her lingering guilt and unsteadiness shifting easily into irritation, "that's why I brought the bag. What about you?"

His mouth quirked. "I'll be procuring pajamas once we arrive."

Before she could respond—and she would have, and it would have been good—he continued, entirely professionally, "I recommend you begin to change, as we'll be arriving shortly."

She stared at him. He recommended she what?

He'd seen her naked, sure. But they were having a . . . a fight, or something, she wasn't sure . . . and she sure as hell wasn't feeling like undressing in front of him at the moment. She was pissed at him.

And she was also, she realized, as she fought to keep her expression as neutral as his, turned on.

"What about you?" she demanded, pressing her thighs tight together and pretending he wouldn't notice.

"I'll have time once you've been let off." He paused. "Well, Sydney?" His voice caressed her name. A slight smirk teased at one corner of his mouth.

He was playing with her, of course—getting back at her for her sharpness with him earlier. She gritted, "You're right," and met his eyes squarely as she lifted the hem of her shirt above her head.

If this was all he wanted as revenge, she counted herself lucky. As innocuous as his current lifestyle might at times appear to be, he was still _Sark_. Even though she knew him better now than she ever had before, her perception of the reality of the violence inside of him hadn't softened. It had just become more real. And when her top had cleared her body, making his eyes visible once again, he still looked dangerous, impassive, not aroused in the least. It was just her.

He continued to watch her indolently while she changed, and her irritation grew. A little revenge was fine, but enough was enough. Weren't they beyond games like this? She lifted her hips brusquely from the seat as she unfastened her jeans, unwilling to appear in any way as if she were trying to seduce him. Unwilling to play. But she felt his eyes on her anyway, the mock-voyeurism of the scene, the tension and play of power between them—watched and watcher, desired and desirer—and it made her shiver. She pulled the slim, sturdily lined dress up quickly.

Fully dressed, she stuffed her shed clothing into her carry-on and looked stubbornly out the window for the rest of the drive. When they arrived, she reached for the door handle without looking at Sark.

"Sydney. . . ." His hand reached out, closed around the back of her neck as she turned at the sound of his voice, and yanked her to him for a brief, hard kiss. As she licked her lips, soothing the bite of his with her tongue, he added, "I'll see you onboard."

-

Amelia Barinski was a Russian-American businesswoman of dubious descent but unquestionable class and polish. She sipped the mimosa she had charmed a more fortunate businessman out of on her way through the first class cabin, as she listened to the pleasant classical piped in through the airline seats, courtesy of her top-of-the-line iPod-compatible ear buds. Her slim gray dress accented her curves without suggesting anything (overly) forward, and her long, stocking-clad legs crossed primly at the ankles. Her chestnut hair was fastened near the top of her head, high enough to clear the top of the airline seat, and smart black-framed glasses perched on her strong-boned nose. Anyone could see she was flying coach rather than business class as a result of some airline mistake, some ill-timed overbooking, and was enduring the situation with grace and good temper.

Her seatmate was another story altogether. He'd held up the flight, rushing on last minute and knocking into half the plane with his duffel on his way back to row 23. Anyone who spoke with him was unable to hold it against him, however; his smile was charming, and the warmth of his deep Australian accent impossible to defend against. He was in slacks and a well-tailored shirt, but there was something about him that felt slightly . . . disreputable. Roguish. A little less upper crust than the quality of his clothes would otherwise indicate. When he'd swung into the seat next to Amelia's, stuffing his bag under the seat next to her neatly tucked carry-on, she'd been startled, then charmed, then immediately turned off, because Amelia was the kind of woman who distrusted charm.

"Robert Hiddlestone," he introduced himself, sticking out a hand as he settled into his aisle seat. "Friends call me Bob."

"Amelia," she had returned with a brief and polite smile. "You cut your arrival close."

"That I did." He ruffled a hand across his close-cropped blonde hair, then bent back to his bag. He reemerged with a pack of gum. "Hate flying. Do you want a piece?"

"No, thank you," she replied, a bit startled, mystifyingly affronted. She turned to face the back of the seat in front of her once more, turning up the music a symbolic decibel or two. Then, maddeningly, she felt compelled to turn back and ask, "If you hate flying, why are you on an airplane?"

He grinned—roguishly. "Promised a girl."

"That you'd get on an airplane?" Her inquiry was arch, and she was afraid she might be flirting.

"That I'd be in Toulon for her ballet recital." He slid a hand inside his jacket pocket, pulled out a slim wallet, flipped it open. Inside, there was a picture of a slight blond girl, five, perhaps six, in a leotard. "My niece."

"She's beautiful," Amelia said honestly, and reached out to trace her finger along the girl's face—Amelia had always wanted children, still wanted them, still could have them, if she could find someone to have them with; she was young—but brushed Robert's hand instead as he went to tuck the photo away. Their gazes met—his curious, hers embarrassed—a bare instant before she turned away. He hummed at the back of his throat.

"So what's your story, Amelia love? Headed to Marseille for business?"

The real answer, _yes_, had been on the tip of her tongue. _Yes. I have meetings. An old colleague to meet._ Instead, she replied, "No. Pleasure."

That grin again: harmless, disarming. "Want to start now?"

She flushed. Amelia didn't flush easily, or often, but he'd taken her by surprise. His eyes teased down her: playing, not intruding. Inoffensive as they took in her curves.

"I'll—pass," she said, trying to hide the breathless quality of her voice. Then, because it seemed polite, "But thank you."

"My loss," he answered, tipped his head with smile, and pulled a book from the duffel—_On the Road_, Jack Kerouac.

Amelia turned back to the seat in front of her, and focused on the music. Amelia didn't like to think about work when she wasn't doing it and therefore didn't have to; travel time was her time. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the gentle rise of the plane as it climbed, and considered what to have for lunch. Pasta, if at all possible—Amelia didn't count carbs, she lost weight the old-fashioned way: several miles a morning on the treadmill. Pasta tossed in olive oil, with mushrooms and artichoke hearts, and a sprinkle of parmesan. She conjured the table setting: the delicate china, the high thread count linens, the crystal of the white wine glass. Amelia loved white wine.

The _fasten seat belt_ sign chimed and blinked off, and next to her Robert reached to unfasten his. She looked up briefly.

"The bathroom, love," he told her as he slid out of the seat. He winked. "If you wanted to join me."

She distractedly checked out his hips, the play of muscles under the fine fabric of his pants, as he headed towards the lavatory at the back of the cabin. She bit her lip, and took a thoughtful swallow of her nearly-drunk mimosa. It spread through her warmly—though it was likely the thought of following Robert that created the heat she felt now. And why not? He was attractive. So was she. They both looked like people who knew how to ask for what they wanted, and so both of them finding satisfaction from the encounter seemed likely. She'd broken things off with her most recent boyfriend only a few weeks before, and her body hadn't yet gone fallow—it still expected regular attention.

She finished the mimosa and handed it to a passing flight attendant. Then she checked her hair and lipstick before releasing her seat belt from its fastening and making her way towards the back of the plane.

At the bank of lavatories, she realized he could be in any of them—so she leaned against the side so she could see them all and waited for him to leave. It didn't take long. A few moments after she'd arranged herself to look as casual as possible, he emerged. He took her in rapidly, then extended a hand and pulled her after him as he backed through the doorway he'd just exited. She thought she heard a flight attendant's bored sigh.

Her fingers tingled in his, and her breath shortened as he reached around her to pull the door closed. There was a hard _shnick_ as the lock slid into place. Occupied. The way she was about to be.

As his hands rested on her hips, he said, "We need to discuss what happens once we land."

Her brain shook the shift in accent off, stayed stubbornly within the moment. "I'd rather discuss what happens now." She lifted her mouth up, and with a small, resigned exhale of breath he lowered his to meet it, kissing her with slow, attentive care. She lowered her hands to his belt.

Amelia was turned on by this: meeting in a bathroom in the air, making meaning in the moment, enjoying the taste of a man she might never see again. Amelia lived on her own terms, because her life was small enough, meaningless enough, that she was worth leaving alone. No one tried to control Amelia.

She deepened the kiss, coaxing his tongue thick into her mouth and tugging his shirt from where it was tucked into his pants. His hands were warm on her upper arms, holding her in place, and they tightened.

"We don't have time for this," he murmured, but he didn't sound like he was complaining. Not enough to make her stop, anyway.

She kissed her way to his neck, inhaled his scent. Amelia inhaled his scent, and thought about how fortunate she was.

"Sydney."

She shook her head, and laved the cord on his neck the way he liked so much, and let his groan wash over her and drive her arousal higher. She worked, fingers slipping with haste, at the fastening of his trousers, trying to outrun the acknowledgment of the name he'd murmured against her ear, the way he was trying to gain her attention. She didn't want that. She just wanted him. Amelia wanted him, wanted Robert.

"Sydney!"

And Amelia wilted away, leaving Sydney on her own, hands between her body and Sark's, and angry. "If you aren't going to stay in character—"

"Sydney," he said again, keeping his voice lower than her own, "as much as I would dearly love to ravish you at 60,000 feet, I feel that discussing the next step of our operation might be somewhat more advisable, given the circumstances."

When she didn't answer, just leaned her head back against the door and closed her eyes, he asked, "Sydney?"

"I'm fine." She was. As much as she'd wanted to sink into Amelia—only child, tidy life, motive and opportunity to have a leisurely dinner once and awhile, and the freedom to have a harmless airplane fling—when she was with Sark she'd rather be Sydney. Even if that meant using the pretense of the Mile High Club to hold a strategy meeting. That was something that had always been true—they had always only been themselves with one another. She opened her eyes and met his directly. The concern she found in them was gratifying, but unnecessary. "Talk."

He lifted one of her hands and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, but didn't comment or try to push, just said, "We'll need to leave separately, rendezvous somewhere. Would Amelia rent a Sedan?" His voice was tinged with affectionate humor.

"If she weren't expecting to do anything but business this trip."

"Excellent. If you'll stop at the ladies room once we've landed, I'll proceed to the rental counter and choose something entirely unsuitable for our purposes, something that Robert would appreciate. We'll convene two hours after landing in Marseille, a block west of the building where your sister was spotted. We'll abandon my vehicle and assess the security situation from there."

She gave a short nod; further speech on her part wasn't necessary. She smoothed her hair in preparation of exiting the bathroom, and wondered where her hair clip had gotten to, and when.

He acknowledged their understanding with an incline of his own head, and went about putting himself back together, making her even more aware of how close they were pressed in the space of the bathroom; his knuckles brushed against her stomach as he tucked his shirt back into the waistband of his pants.

When he was done, they both shifted around so that he could exit first; she'd take an extra moment to "clean up," and press a deeper flush into her cheeks—visual evidence. And, while she was there, she figured, actually use the bathroom. He reached up to flip the lock.

"Wait." She caught his arm. "How did it go? Amelia and Robert's . . . encounter."

He raised his eyebrows.

"We need to be on the same page as to how we're supposed to act when we get back to our seats." He was looking at her a little ludicrously—no appreciation, obviously, for a thorough alias—and she shook her head, a little sadly. "It probably didn't go well. Robert strikes me as selfish."

He pretended exaggerated affront. "On the contrary—it went quite well. It was a mutually satisfying and entirely satisfactory affair." When she looked doubtful, he assured her, "Amelia came twice."

"Good for Amelia," Sydney said mock-sourly, but smiling inside.

"Darling Sydney," he said, and slid his hands through her hair . . . then twisted it back up and fastened it with the clip Sydney had lost track of, "I'll take care of you tonight." He stroked his thumbs along her jaw, and kissed her softly on the mouth.

They spent the rest of the flight with his hand resting warm on her thigh through the fabric of her skirt, and Amelia was for the first time a difficult alias to keep up.


	20. Part Twenty

**Part Twenty**

Sark's promise went unfulfilled.

Sydney ignored the cramp in her belly, sign of sexual need unfulfilled, and focused on strapping on the Kevlar vest, fastening the gun onto the outside of her thigh, the knife at her ankle. Not that she could have focused on going to bed with him even if she'd wanted to try. She was jittery in her stomach, and cold underneath that. Hard. Her eyes matched. Flinty. She'd seen them reflected in Sark's as he'd handed her the gun; the metal had passed firmly between their hands, like an organic part of a lover's clasp. Or a partner's. Hand to hand. Metal to flesh. Their rhythm hadn't broken as they'd returned to strapping themselves in. Preparing, grimly, for a fight.

They'd arrived at their destination, met as planned. The office building had been barely secured—except for the sixth floor. The video Sark had been sent earlier that day was missing from the tapes—those minutes had been erased, and crudely, as if by the application of something magnetic, in a rush (Sydney had checked them while Sark sweet-talked the receptionist). They hadn't been able to access the sixth floor, not without proper planning, specs, equipment, but a few well-placed questions had yielded the company name—_Le Passager_, the Passenger—and a description of the man who seemed to run the place, a fit, attractive man of perhaps fifty, who wore sunglasses even indoors and whom others found distinctly discomforting to pass on the stairs. No one knew what the offices were for, precisely. No one had ever spoken at length to anyone who worked there, or run into them in the elevator—unorthodox hours, it was assumed. A dead end. But there were other ways.

Sydney called her father, and APO, while Sark contacted his man at the embassy.

"That's odd," Sark said as she emerged from the bedroom of their hotel room, tucking her phone into her pants pocket. He was sitting in one of the oversized chairs in the front sitting room, his right ankle balanced on the opposite knee and his own phone pressed absently to his lips. "My contact at the embassy was unaware he'd sent me any video, or anything at all in the last twenty-four hours."

Sydney furrowed her brow as she lowered herself into the chair across from his. "Someone wanted us here?"

"One assumes. But why?" He tapped the phone twice against his chin, and frowned.

"A trap." Sydney suggested playing the straight man to his speculations. He was onto something, bits and pieces of intel coming together and shaping themselves into an answer behind his unfocused eyes, and she was willing to be patient and let it.

"Of some sort," he agreed. "Who would have known you were looking for your sister? And that sending the video to me would have brought us both running?"

"It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with me," Sydney pointed out. "Nadia and . . . their presence might have been completely random. Maybe you were the target, and Lauren was the bait."

"Except I could have found Ms. Reed easily enough on my own, should I have had the inclination. We parted ways, but still have many contacts in common. No, your sister was the most likely bait, considering the circumstances. Which returns us to our earlier question."

"Who knows we're working together to find Nadia."

"Your father's men, of course."

"Your household." He shot her a dark look, and, peeved from his accusation of her father's people, she snapped, "We're looking at every option."

He inclined his head—an apology. She wished he wasn't so much better at them than she was.

"So who else? We were never in public together."

His eyes closed lightly. "Only someone actually with her."

"With Nadia."

"Yes."

His phone rang. He lowered his hand, palm open, and looked at it curiously. Then he laughed, and used his thumb to flick it open as he brought it to his ear and stood, all in one fluid motion. Sydney stood too. She went to touch his arm when he passed her, mouth, "Who is it?", but he fluidly avoided her hand and shut the door to the bedroom behind him.

She frowned, staring at the closed door. _Personal business_, she told herself, but she didn't like the way he'd sidestepped her, and she didn't like feeling, she discovered, like his second priority. Like a distraction he could shrug off when something more important came along.

Sitting in the chair he had vacated, she gathered her hair into a ponytail at the nape of her neck, and used the hair band on her wrist to secure it. She tucked the loose layers behind her ears and then slid the laptop over to the table's edge. Checked her email. Nothing from her father. She was debating breaking into Sark's account when the door opened and he reemerged. She looked up, then returned her eyes to the computer screen, maybe too quickly for stealth. It wasn't any of her business who had called, or what about.

"That," he announced, "was Lauren."

"_What?_" She looked up, shocked, her deep-seated antipathy for the woman tangling with jealousy and rising, burning into her chest and throat.

His eyes were far away. "It's curious. She dislikes you immensely, but as it happens, nowhere near as much as she hates Michael Vaughn. She called with information. About your sister."

He told her what Lauren had told him: Where Vaughn and Nadia would be in only a few hours. The best ways in. What Vaughn was after. At the end of it, she balled her hands into fists, released them, then forced herself to ask, "And we can trust her? In this?"

Sark nodded once. "In this instance, I believe we can."

Sydney breathed in deeply, and let go. She met his eyes. "Okay." She put her fingers to her temples, and pressed in. "We're going to need other weapons. Vests."

"We'll have them. My supplies contact is extremely reliable. And quick." He paused, cocked his head to the side, said delicately, "Sydney, if you need . . . ."

"I need this to be over with," she said. Then, "But thank you."

If they worked quickly, they had a chance of rescuing Nadia, and taking Vaughn into custody. Stopping him. She drew on the fury burning inside her belly, and tamped down on the ache that still haunted her heart. She couldn't afford to be anything but focused, and her anger, the hard sharp thing it had become, would help her. Her grief, her worry, her fear—they would not.

"Call your contact," she said, standing.

The sooner she knew Nadia was safe, the sooner she could deal with the rest of it—the sooner she could deal with all the ways in which her life had been changed

The address Lauren had given them was for a church, an old one, and Sydney recognized the iconography from the one she'd visited in Spain in search of the golden sun—Rambaldi. But then, her whole life was Rambaldi, wasn't it? She couldn't escape him.

Because no one would let her.

They'd entered the church separately, and easily, met up again outside the doors to the main chapel. Inside there was the sound of wood scraping along stone, footsteps, the clatter of some kind of tool, and Sydney's heart beast fast. This was too easy. It was too easy.

_Trap?_ she mouthed to Sark, turning her head to glance at him.

He grimaced, and pulled out his gun. She did the same.

_One_, she mouthed. _Two_, he returned. They finished with _Three_, together, as they kicked in the doors, prepared to dodge shots, to take on a dozen men, to fight for their lives. But there was only Vaughn, looking shocked, crouched in front of a patch in the wall that, next to the age-worn stone that surrounded it, looked discolored, too dark, a shadow of other times. On the altar that had been moved from in front of it, Lauren sat, moodily, legs swinging like a little girl's, lips in a sullen pout. Lips that curved upwards as she saw them, and quickly broke into an "o" of surprise as Vaughn, already standing, jerked her in front of him, between him and the weapons Sydney and Sark both had leveled at his body.

Not a trap, then—or at least not Vaughn's. He was caught off guard. Angry.

"Don't take another step," he warned. He had his own gun out, muzzle pressed hard enough to the side of Lauren's head that it tilted to the side. Lauren looked more irritated then scared—but Sydney could see the tremble to her knees.

Sydney stopped automatically. Beside her, Sark had paused as well. "Where's Nadia? Is she here?" she demanded.

A look of consternation passed over Vaughn's face that Sydney didn't understand. "She's safe."

Fury rolled through her; she almost lost her breath from the force of it. _How dare he._ Safe? She flashed back to the bathroom in Sark's home: the presumption of Vaughn's _concern_, his refusal, her stunned disbelief.

"Let her go," Sark instructed calmly. In the empty chapel, his voice rang. Authoritative. And cool.

Outrage marred Vaughn's face. "Are you playing the gallant hero now? Is that it?" His eyes flickered to Sydney. "Is that why you're still with him?"

Sydney's eyes were locked on the target, on Vaughn, but she heard the sound of Sark re-releasing the safety—a warning—clearly.

Vaughn tightened his hold on Lauren, who was stubbornly silent, wild gleam in her eye, chin lifted. Even at this distance Sydney could tell he was going to leave marks, but it was as if Lauren hardly noticed. Or enjoyed it.

"You'll have to go through her to get to me," Vaughn said.

_Who is this man?_ she wondered. Where was the Vaughn who made her feel safe, protected, taken care of—who made her laugh? What had happened to turn him into this? She felt so _sorry_ for him. She felt sorry for them both. But she couldn't let that blind her.

"I don't care about her," Sydney said coldly, fighting back the pity, the grief.

He shook his head. "You'd never kill in cold blood, not like this. Not even her." He turned his eyes to Sark, and something violent flashed in them. "And it doesn't matter whether you care," he said, "because he does."

Vaughn jutted the barrel of the gun into Lauren's neck hard enough to make her wince, and every muscle in Sydney's body tensed, ready to strike.

"Sydney," Sark said quietly, but there was an undercurrent of need in his voice. "Please."

She lowered her gun slightly; but that only seemed to make Vaughn angrier.

And then she heard it: her sister's voice, faint, but audible. She was calling her name.

"Sydney?"

Sydney's heart squeezed, and relief almost made her legs give way. She called back, without shifting her eyes from Vaughn and Lauren, "Nadia! I'm here! Where are you?"

Vaughn yelled, "What are you doing?"

"Finding my _sister_," Sydney snapped as Nadia's faint voice returned, "Up-upstairs, I . . . think."

Lauren took advantage of Vaughn's distraction, and Sydney's, managing to stomp on Vaughn's instep and then, out of his grasp and the direct path of the gun, knee him in the balls. He went down on his knees, hard, gun skittering. Lauren spit on him, blond hair swinging with her effort, and Sydney moved to apprehend her, but Sark stopped her. Lauren was already slipping out a side door.

"Sydney, let her go."

Their eyes locked. There was compassion, and resolve, and a little bit of sadness in his; she didn't know what hers held.

She made a frustrated noise, but she knew she would capitulate, was doing it already, even if it tore her up inside. "Sark, I can't just—"

He shook his head. "Consider it payment rendered for bringing us here."

"Bitch," Vaughn hissed from the ground. His face was very white, and he was still curled around his midsection as he struggled to his feet.

"Now, now, Mr. Vaughn," Sark said, cocking his head slightly as he measured his shot. His gun was pointed at the center of Vaughn's chest; Vaughn raised his hands slowly.

Nadia was still calling from upstairs, asking what was wrong, what had happened.

"Sydney," Sark said, "go after her."

"Are you sure—" she started, glancing between him and Vaughn.

"Go," he said again, and she didn't ask again. She turned and sprinted for the steps, tucking her gun, safety engaged, into the back of her pants as she took the stairs outside the chapel two at a time. "I'm coming," she called. "Keep talking. I'll follow your voice."

"Thank God you're here," Nadia's words came back to her.

Sydney paused momentarily at the top of the stairs, steered herself in the direction of Nadia's voice—left, then right, then all the way down to the hallway's end. The edge of desperation in her sister's voice fueled her, laced her blood with adrenaline.

She found Nadia behind a locked door, which she paused to assess with her fingers—wood grain, quality, thickness—before kicking in. Nadia's smile was the most welcome thing she'd ever seen. Her hair was disheveled, sweaty, and her face smudged with gray, but she looked healthy, flushed, whole. Beautiful.

"Where's Vaughn?" Nadia asked as Sydney bent and started on the handcuffs that joined her sister's hands. The links between the cuffs were threaded between two legs of an old piano, bolted, Sydney saw, to the floor. Vaughn had locked her in an old music room, Sydney realized—while he searched the church? for what?—obviously unused for years, wooden chairs in approximate but uneven rows to her left, heavy old music stands cluttered along the back wall there next to the piano.

"Downstairs," Sydney answered. "Sark has him."

"Sark?" Nadia's eyebrows shot nearly to her hairline.

"It's okay," Sydney said, and laughter bubbled up in her chest, because it was, it really was. She had total confidence that when she returned downstairs with Nadia, Sark would still be there, with Vaughn at gunpoint, and he'd help her out of the country, help her and Nadia get home. And then what, she didn't know. But she'd figure it out. Everything was going to be okay.

The lock on the first cuff clicked, and Nadia's sigh of relief as her hand was released was like music. Nadia rubbed her wrist with her still captured hand as Sydney worked on the second cuff. It was easier without the impediment of the piano leg, and the dust on the piano's list that threatened to choke her every time she inhaled. It opened quickly.

Rising from her crouch, Sydney extended a hand to her sister, and they both stood. Nadia, Sydney noticed, looked uncertain.

"I can't tell you how much it means to me, that you came for me," Nadia said softly. Her hands were clenched together in front of her.

"Of course I came for you," Sydney said. Smiling felt oddly out of place—there was a prickle of uneasiness at the back of her neck—but she tried anyway.

"You didn't have to."

"You're my sister." Sydney reached out a hand, smoothed a lock of hair back from Nadia's face. She was family. And family, real family, was everything. She hadn't believed it before Nadia. "I love you."

A crack from downstairs pulled her attention towards the door. She'd been caught up in her sister's face, her luminous eyes, how troubled she looked even now that she was free, and the sound had reminded her why she was here, reminded her of Vaughn, and Sark, downstairs.

"We have to go," she said apprehensively, still looking at the door.

"I know," Nadia said. "And I'm sorry."

"What?"

Sydney turned just in time to see the music stand swing towards her head. And then everything went black.


	21. Part Twenty One

**Part Twenty-One**

Lauren Reed had been important, once.

Actually, she reflected, twice—she'd been important twice.

The first time was as a child, when, as a girl of six, she'd been identified as a potential vessel for Rambaldi's prophecies: her Russian lineage, the timing of her birth, her father's success in government and politics. The man's more elucidating writings were just being discovered, then; Rambaldi's timing, as always, impeccable. Her mother, shrewd Olivia, had presented her to the Cabal (William Vaughn was just one among many, then), and it was arranged that she would be schooled in England, trained in spycraft, and generally treated to the best. Treated as if she were special. And trained to loyalty.

She wasn't the only one, of course. There were a handful of little girls just like her, even a boy or two, all likely prospects, but she distinguished herself early. Never particularly appealing to her busy, "charitable" mother before the circumstances of her birth were classified as special, she was hungry to please. She was talented, and that endeared her to her teachers. And the more information the Cabal's higher-ups gathered about the Passenger, the more likely it appeared that she was, in fact, the child in question.

The Cabal had not been interested in the Chosen One. They might have been, except no one, then, knew she existed. There was only the Passenger. The Passenger, and Michael Vaughn.

Lauren fell in love with Michael Vaughn when she was eleven years old. She took one look at his picture—a grainy surveillance still from his after-school baseball practice—and she lost her breath, her heart beat fast, and she knew—_knew_—that this man was her destiny. He was what she was being trained for. She slept, nights, with his picture beneath her pillow and though there were other boys, other romantic feelings, even full-fledged love affairs, he was the one she always came back to. Her true love.

After graduating prep school she attended university while completing her training. By then William Vaughn was in charge of the Cabal, but she didn't know him yet. And wouldn't get the chance, not then. Because in her last year of study, six months before she would have been sent to America to make contact with Michael Vaughn, they discovered Sydney Bristow, calculated the high likelihood of her being the one they had been looking for. And Lauren was ignored.

Doors that had always opened to her before were suddenly closed. Those who had previously jockeyed for her company, in order to stand in the reflected glow of her importance, no longer had time for her. She was, suddenly, just another agent. A good one—not the best, but very competent—but nothing more. She was directionless; she lived for months in a haze of confusion, of fear—and of seething hatred for Sydney, the woman who had stolen her life out from under her, just by existing.

She'd almost adjusted—the hatred had eased into a tangy bitterness, and she was discovering the few but tangible benefits of the shift in her status—when the word came: Sydney couldn't be the Passenger. Because Sydney was dead.

And all of a sudden, Lauren returned to favor. Four months later, she was seated across from a Michael Vaughn who wouldn't meet her eyes as she questioned him, compassionately but firmly, for the agency, about Sydney. That was the part that she remembered most clearly: that he wouldn't answer her questions about Sydney. And it was then, sitting an interminable four feet away from him, the man she hadn't been able to stop loving, realizing he would never tell her about Sydney, about what he and Sydney had, realizing how much he had loved her, that she started to hate him, just a little bit. Over the next year she seduced him, married him. But she never stopped hating him. Because he never let go of Sydney, and she couldn't let go of him.

Sydney's return from the grave meant only that Lauren had another target for her antipathy. Nothing really changed—Sydney, or her ghost, had been there all along—yet it was different. Vaughn was different.

She let the Covenant recruit her because she was angry. She had the affair with Sark because she wanted someone who looked at her for a change. But that had backfired, of course, in a number of ways. Annoying. It would have been more than annoying—except she had other things to contend with. Because then there was Nadia.

Lauren always did what she was told—she was a good girl, a loyal operative, an obedient daughter. When they told her to go, she went. But that was over. Because all she got for her trouble was cast out. Forgotten. Since it had been determined with some measure of certainty that Nadia, not Lauren, was the Passenger, Lauren had become an angry person. When she stared at herself in the mirror, mornings, she did not recognize who she saw there. She didn't like herself anymore. But she couldn't help it. There was too much rage inside her, too many years of resentment.

And as she walked through the front doors of Bill Vaughn's current front company, head high, stride long, all those feelings flooded back to her twice as strong, stiffening her spine and making it difficult to keep her expression neutral. Behind her, Michael Vaughn and Nadia scurried to keep up. No one got in their way. She'd called ahead, of course. Informed them she was coming, and with whom. And for this brief moment it was as if everything was as it had been. Men and women moved deferentially out of her way. No one questioned her. The expressions on the faces of those she passed were full of fear and awe. But they weren't because of her. They were because of the guests she escorted. The Passenger—and the best hope the world had of surviving her.

As she approached the back office, a secretary—a burly, dark-skinned man in a black tie who, she had been told, typed 100 words a minute with hands that used to work a sniper rifle for a South African resistance movement—stood. "Ms. Reed."

"Is he in?" she inquired more politely then she wanted to.

"He's expecting you."

Of course he was. She turned to nod at Nadia and Michael (Nadia looked grim, almost sick; Michael's face was stormy, his brow unsurprisingly furrowed), then pushed through bullet proof glass door into the offices of her mentor, her father-in-law, a man she tried to hate but couldn't seem to separate herself from no matter how hard she might try: William Vaughn.

"Bill," she greeted him as he stood, then moved to the left so as to not block his views of his real interests—his son, and the Passenger. _Together at last._

"Lauren, sweetheart," he returned absently as he came around the desk, attention already fixed on his son, arms open. Michael stepped into his arms stiffly, looking almost pained. His own arms barely touched his father's back, as if he wouldn't let himself (as if he couldn't believe it and as if he knew he shouldn't, both), even as Bill squeezed him, held it longer than felt really proper in mixed company, and then reluctantly let go.

He turned to Nadia. "And you, my dear . . . ." He took her hands between his own, and smiled at her, but Lauren could see the hesitance behind it: the uncertainty, the fear.

_She's just a girl_, Lauren wanted to scream, irritated. But she'd learned the bitter taste of jealousy well, those years she'd spent at Michael's side, and recognized it now. She was as jealous of that distance, that fear, as she was of the affection. More, maybe. Next to Nadia, Lauren felt _ineffectual_. Before, she had received that same wary respect, the kind Jack Bristow enjoyed, simply by existing. Now she worked for it, and too often came up short.

"Elena is dead," Lauren announced, to cut the greetings short. Nadia flinched as if burned, and Michael—poor, protective sap Michael, who once protected Lauren herself, and just as needlessly—shot Lauren a dark look.

No fool, likely as aware of her motives as she herself was, Bill said mildly, "You mentioned."

She pressed on, casually, "They want to know what she was working on."

Bill considered her then, eyes glittering, assessing—impressed, she thought. At any rate looking at _her_, finally, addressing her with the same attention he had been giving the others. _Ah_, his eyes said, as he smiled, a hard stretch of his lips that briefly turned his open, friendly, handsomely aged face into something calculating and cool and proud. A happy warmth spread through her against her will. He thought she had done well.

He thought she was still on his side.

"You were good to bring them to me," he said to her, and Michael interrupted, "We didn't give her the choice."

Bill smiled. "Son, I think you underestimate your ex-wife."

Michael's expression turned stony. "It wouldn't be the first time. Dad."

Lauren remembered clearly the early days of her and Michael's relationship: late quiet nights in bed with Michael's head pillowed on her naked belly as she ran her fingers through his hair, and listened. He didn't talk about Sydney—never talked about Sydney—but it was as if his silence on that particular subject made the rest of his thoughts too difficult to keep to himself. He'd speak for hours. About his mother, about his childhood, about college. And about his father. How much he'd loved him. How he wondered if Bill would have been proud of him, of the man he'd become. And how much he would have given to be able to know him as a grown man rather than a child. It had hurt her, not to be able to tell him, even as it had given her a pain-tinged thrill of vengeance: she kept his father a secret from him, as he kept Sydney a secret from her.

Now he had that chance—now he stood in front of his father, in front of the real Bill Vaughn, seeing him with adult eyes—and it wasn't what he'd expected. Lauren knew how he felt because she'd felt it too. Disillusionment. Pain. Irrational anger. The bite of it, of knowing Bill Vaughn for who he really was, still hadn't faded from inside her. The reality of him—the conditionality of his affection, the ruthless calculation behind the apparent sincerity and the easy smile—was too different, and too harrowing, for her to ever reconcile.

After Julian had released her from Irina Derevko's custody, she'd gone straight to Bill. She'd explained everything; she'd put herself on her knees before him, and appealed to him as his daughter-in-law, as his former protégé, as anything she thought would make a difference. She knew he'd be angry, but she thought he cared about her—the way Sloane, warped as he was, so obviously cared for Sydney. But the thing that saved her was not affection. It was the value she held as Elena's employee.

It came to her slowly, once she was out of the running and thus able to be told the Passenger's true destiny, what they had feared from her and now feared from Nadia: the Cabal had spent so much time coddling her, training her, ensuring her loyalty and wedding her emotionally to the one person capable of preventing her, as the Passenger, from reaching her full potential, only because it was the best way they could think of to disarm her. They would have just as willingly slaughtered the whole lot of them, all those innocent children they'd plucked from their homes on just a probability, if they thought it would have worked. (Destiny, they believed, could not be denied. Either Michael Vaughn would stop the Passenger or he would not; there would still, regardless, be a Passenger there to be stopped.)

Bill Vaughn, the man she had loved as a father, did not care about her at all. Only what she represented. And realizing that had derailed everything she'd ever been taught; knocking down that one support made the rest of the structure tumble.

Lauren still believed that, for the sake of the world in which they lived, the Passsenger had to be stopped, and that Michael Vaughn was the man who would do it. She just didn't care. She'd told Nadia the truth, because she knew it would bring her here, and that would hurt the two people who had hurt her the most, the father _and_ the son—but because, also, the truth would make Bill Vaughn powerless. And he'd done nothing these last twenty-plus years but work to make sure, after Elena, he was never powerless again.

Nadia would demand the details of Elena's work, and Bill would supply them, would give her what she wanted, rather than risk losing whatever small hold over the Passenger he still possessed. And Michael . . . . She'd take care of Michael.

Lauren smiled. "If you'll excuse me," she said sweetly in the tense silence between father and son, thinking of Sydney Bristow and the company Lauren had overheard she was currently keeping, "I have something I need to take care of."

Hannah in security had always been something resembling a friend. Surely she wouldn't mind if Lauren borrowed her terminal, and her encrypted account, and a few seconds of security footage from earlier that morning. . . .


	22. Part Twenty Two

**Part Twenty-Two**

Michael Vaughn wasn't convinced this whole thing wasn't some bizarre sleep-deprived hallucination. He tried to listen—for Nadia's sake, if nothing else—but he couldn't focus. His father—his _father_—was speaking very seriously to Nadia about his work, about his mission, about more fucking Rambaldi prophecies. And, God, he just didn't care. Never had cared. His mind violently rejected even the man's name, so as hard as he tried to make sense of Bill Vaughn's words, to _care_, he could only catch the sound of them, muddled and far away, in his ears.

Muddled and far away was how his feelings for Bill Vaughn seemed, too. "You're more the man I was than I have ever been," Bill had said to him earlier, as they waited awkwardly for Nadia to return from the restroom (she'd been escorted, naturally, by several spooked, armed guards). He'd said it like it was a compliment—like he was _proud_—but Vaughn couldn't help but feel a sting. He'd spent his life living up to the memory of a man who wasn't real—to an appearance, an _alias_—and it made him feel hollow, unreal himself. He couldn't help dissecting his memories, one by one, looking for indications, for things he should have seen but missed. He wondered if this was how Sydney had felt.

He was standing not ten feet away from his father. His father. The man he'd thrown away his entire life—sacrificed Sydney's love, and her respect—to find. (He could say that he'd done it to protect Sydney, but part of him, a lot of him, had wanted to find his father just for him. The likelihood that Elena had been telling the truth about the risk to Sydney was, in any event, low.) He'd been so stupid. God, what had he been thinking? Elena had told him—"Your father, he is alive, not dead like you think. He has worked for me. I know how to find him"—but he hadn't really listened, hadn't grasped the implications. When he learned Bill Vaughn had been working against Elena, he hadn't stopped to consider that _against_ didn't necessarily mean _for the good, _despite what she'd said about him posing a danger to Sydney. His father was the functional head of another Rambaldi-obsessed crime syndicate with its own ends it would do anything to reach. Bill Vaughn was just like Sloane. Just like Irina Derevko—the woman he'd blamed for a death that had never happened.

Nadia glanced over at him, dark hair framing her questioning face, and as usual he saw Irina in her the way he never did in Sydney, but for the first time, it didn't sting him the way it had before: he could see her magnetism—see Irina's—without the anger, the pain. Of course he'd known for months now that his father wasn't dead, but it was this, seeing him, realizing what he was, that freed him—because he couldn't even blame Irina Derevko now for making his father leave him. The only person responsible for that was Bill Vaughn himself.

Nadia was coming towards him, leaving a bemused and wary-looking Bill Vaughn behind her. She still looked worried as she approached him. "Are you all right?" she asked, brow creased slightly. "You look . . . troubled. If this is too painful—"

"I'm fine," he interrupted, more sharply than he had intended, and winced as something recoiled in her eyes. "I mean, I'm fine. Unsettled, still, a little. Or a lot." He shook his head, laughing a little, rueful. It was forced. "I'm just not sure how to respond to all of this," he admitted.

Nadia glanced back at his father, then returned to him with a small, sad, sympathetic smile. "Not what you expected?"

"No, not at all." But he was going to have to adjust, and quickly. Or at least get better at pretending. He cleared his throat. "What's happening now?"

Nadia sighed. "We're going to see the library."

-

"We've devoted years to studying the prophecies of the Passenger." Bill Vaughn's voice echoed in the long hallway as he led Vaughn and Nadia down it. "Behind every one of these doors is a piece of original prophecy, or an old copy too delicate for exposure to light. We have seventeen separate prophecies regarding the person Rambaldi refers to as the Passenger, though," he looked almost apologetic, "we believe several are mistranslations or bastardizations of each other."

So they didn't really know anything, Vaughn reflected irritably. As if you really could, where Rambaldi was concerned—as if any of it made any sense. As if any of it were true. He'd been mixed up in all of it for years, and he still didn't understand why so many people let themselves be controlled by the ranting of some crazy guy from hundreds of years ago. And frankly, he never wanted to.

Nadia glanced at him, then moved forward slightly to walk next to his father. "How long did it take to collect all this?" she asked, putting her hand on his arm to get his attention.

Vaughn could tell the move was calculated—he'd seen Sydney do the same thing more times than he could count—but Bill Vaughn was, apparently, oblivious. Or playing it. Because when he answered his voice was pleased, and tinged with pride. "Decades. Many decades. Hitler was the one who started the collection; he liked to think he was the Passenger Rambaldi wrote of. The Cabal began as a collective put together to study the prophecies after Germany's defeat."

"Scientists?" Nadia asked.

"Theologians." They reached the end of the hallway, and a key pad-access glass door. Bill Vaughn typed in an eight digit code (Vaughn caught two threes and a seven before his father shifted to block his view of the rest), then pressed his open palm against the screen above it. The door lock released, and he pulled it open. "After you," he said, and Nadia, then Vaughn, stepped inside.

"In this library is all the work that's been done on these prophecies since 1945. Interpretations, historical research and context, comparisons, theories. The byproduct of decades of study by brilliant, tenacious minds utterly devoted to a single cause: pre-determining the identity of the Passenger."

The room was low-ceilinged, and didn't seem to end on any side, though of course it had to—he'd seen the blueprints, he and Nadia had demanded to see them before they let Lauren take them in. Rows of filing cabinets, the old-style wooden variety with small round pulls, stretched to all sides, and in the center, right in front of them, was a cluster of tables, many with sharp-angled, sleek PC machines he suspected outstripped tenfold even the CIA's resources. The lights were adequate, but slightly yellow. It _felt_ like library. It was silent—there was no one working . . . but then, perhaps they'd been cleared out for his and Nadia's visit.

"So the Cabal was begun by men of faith?" Nadia slid her fingers over the front of a line of cabinets. No dust, Vaughn noted. Either their cleaning staff was top of the line, or the files were well and frequently used.

His father's lips curved in a smile that had Vaughn known him less well—or maybe if he knew him better—would have seemed almost wistful. "The founders of the Cabal came to the prophecies without any faith at all—study, yes, but no faith. Rambaldi restored their belief that there was more to this life than they were able to perceive."

"'There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio,'" Vaughn muttered.

Nadia turned her attention from the cabinets to his father. "So what have you learned, here, after all these years of work? What is it that I'm supposed to do?"

"Nadia," his father said gently (with care behind the gentleness, strict attention to her response), "you're supposed to destroy the world."

There was a heavy, lengthy pause, fraught with silence and a shiver of foreboding.

"Yes," Nadia said, a hint of exasperation in her voice, "but _how_?"

"Ah," his father said, and chuckled. "Let me show you this." And from the center of one of the study tables he'd lifted up a box, a translucent cube with a wood veneer top meant to blend seamlessly into the table in which it was stored. Inside was a device; it was metal, and formed from a narrow base with two tightly crescent-shaped bends of metal that formed generous "U"s.

"This is Rambaldi's design, of course," his father explained. "It holds two oblong paper-thin slices of stone, each marred distinctively so that, when the two are placed side by side, a light shown through them reveals the information we need to decode a formula, also of Rambaldi's design. We have the first, thanks to Lauren. We've yet to obtain the second."

Vaughn studied the device through the glass. "And?"

"And the Passenger, I believe, should be able to find it. It does, after all, lead to her destiny."

"Which is?" Nadia prompted, beginning to sound impatient—something Vaughn liked her for all the more.

"That's the trouble." Bill Vaughn smiled briefly. "You're supposed to channel Rambaldi—but until you've done so, we don't know what the message will be. What you're supposed to do."

Nadia bent down until she was eye level with the metal structure, and for a long moment stared at it as if it might yield the answers she sought on its own. "I don't understand what you're trying to do here," she said finally, softly. "If my channeling Rambaldi could lead to something so horrible that it would be capable of destroying the world in my hands, why try to learn the formula to do so at all? Why not destroy the designs, and the stones, and everything else?"

"Because Rambaldi was a wise, wise man, and like every truly wise man, he had redundancy plans. Nadia, we are not the only organization working towards obtaining the formula. Elena Derevko was very close. And there are others. You are destined to use this formula; we can only attempt to shape the circumstances in which you do so, and in that way affect the outcome for the better."

"The best way to stop me," Nadia murmured, "is to help me."

"Yes," Bill Vaughn agreed. Vaughn pretended not to hear the regret in his voice.

Nadia closed her eyes as if she were in pain, but when she opened them again they were calm and clear, her face relaxed. "Then how do I find the second stone disk?"

And so here they were, now, Lauren unwillingly in tow, unloading the equipment from the car they'd concealed in the thick trees off the gravel road. The sun was still bright as it began to dip below the line of the trees, and Vaughn was hyper aware of the sweat collecting under his arms and at the small of his back despite the chill in the air.

Bill Vaughn had been the one who insisted they take Lauren with them. "She's familiar with the area, and the disk," he'd reminded them, and his seriousness had reminded Vaughn unpleasantly, disorientingly, of the father he'd once known. "And it never hurts to have another pair of eyes. It will be safer."

He hadn't wanted to, but Nadia had agreed with his father—for other reasons. "She doesn't trust him any more than we do," she reminded him—though Vaughn wasn't entirely sure he agreed with Nadia assessment there. "She may be willing to tell us what he is not."

She was right—of course she was right—but that didn't mean he had to like it. His knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel of the car Bill Vaughn had lent them; Lauren sat close-mouthed in the back seat, except when she needed to tell him where to turn. Nadia spent the entire ride with her eyes closed, her fingers pressed against her temples. Headache, he assumed. He didn't imagine he'd enjoy spending time in a car with him and Lauren either.

"I need to make a phone call," Lauren had announced just before they were due to leave. She had been leaning against the side of the car, dark glasses shielding her eyes and face turned back towards the country house where their supplier had met them, while he and Nadia loaded equipment into the trunk.

"For God's sake," he'd exploded, dropping the box he was carrying harder than he should have, "can't you make it in the car?"

Her eyebrows had risen slowly, haughtily, over the sunglasses' rims—something he'd never seen her do while they were married . . . no, never seen her do only before Sydney had come back. "It's a _private_ phone call," she snapped.

Nadia placed her hand gently on his arm. "Five minutes won't hurt. Let her do it."

"I wasn't asking permission," Lauren said. "And I'll only be two."

In reality, she was closer to ten. But Nadia seemed entirely—eerily—calm. "You worry too much," she'd told him, and he wasn't sure if she was teasing him or not.

Then again, he wasn't sure about much these days. And every time he thought of it, he just felt sick. He'd been stupid; he'd been so obsessed with _finding_ his father, and so tormented by what he was giving up to do it, that he hadn't thought about what to do afterwards. Maybe he'd imagined an emotional reunion, apologies and explanations on his father's part, guilt, joy, and both of them choking back tears; all he'd known was that he had to find him. And here he was: his old life destroyed, the new one he'd hoped for as impossible as it had been vague.

So he focused on Nadia, the surety of her mission, and told himself it was because he owed it to her now to help her with whatever this was he had gotten her into. But he knew it was mostly just that he was glad to have someone else running the show. Someone that wasn't him. Even aside from the situation he'd found himself—_put_ himself—in, he did best when he was guiding, supporting, directing.

That's why he and Syd had worked so well together: she was good at the whole action thing, and he was good at keeping her safe. Or he had been. He'd failed her, the night they thought she had died. And he'd never quite gotten over that. Which might have been why it had been so . . . not easy, but bearable . . . to do what he had done. He didn't deserve her, he'd never deserved her, and so not having her—it felt right. It felt like justice. The punishment he deserved, for everything he had failed to do.

He'd failed Sydney . . . but he wouldn't fail Nadia.

It was almost like getting a second chance.

Inside the church the disk was supposed to have been hidden in, they split up: Nadia headed up the stairs, and left him, Lauren in tow, to the sanctuary. "Lauren retrieved the first one," Nadia explained ("from the CIA," he argued, and she ignored him), "and if your father is correct, then my chances of locating the disk are greater than yours. It's the only way to split up that makes sense."

So he and Lauren were searching the sanctuary—or he was searching the sanctuary, and Lauren was doing her best to pretend she wasn't there, as far as he could tell. He ignored her—he was getting better at it, better at disregarding the current that still snapped between them—and concentrated on looking. The church made him antsy; it was too big, too empty, too quiet. So did Lauren's smugness, as she sat on the altar he'd pushed away from the wall to check behind. He turned his back on her to crouch down and check the stretch of wall he'd revealed.

He was pressing his fingers along the seams in the stone, looking for weaknesses, when the double _smack_ of the doors as they hit the inside sanctuary walls echoed through the room. He whirled—and had Lauren pulled in front of him, his gun pulled from his shoulder holster and pressed to her head before he could even think.

Because standing only a hundred feet away, guns drawn, were Julian Sark—

And Sydney.

And judging by the look on Sydney's face, she'd pull the trigger in a heartbeat.

Their last conversation—he'd just needed to know she was all right. The explosion, the door . . . . He'd just needed to know. And he hoped that, maybe, he'd be able to explain. He didn't expect her to forgive him—he didn't deserve that—but he'd wanted to tell her, at least, to make her understand. She always understood. It'd been hell not telling her what was happening—lying to her had been bad, and hard, but not telling her had been worse. There had been so much in his head: his father alive, the things Elena told him, what she wanted him to do. . . .

In his grip, Lauren laughed, just lightly, and all the anger that had simmered underneath the surface, deadened temporarily by his father's presence, flared back to life. She'd done this. She'd brought them here. The phone call.

He forced the gun harder against her head. "Don't take another step!" he yelled.

"Where's Nadia?" Sydney demanded. Her hair fell free around the hard lines of her face, which hardened further as she asked, "Is she here?"

_Fuck_. Nadia.

"She's safe." The same answer he'd given Sydney on the phone. The only answer he could give. Nadia _was_ safe. He was the one in danger.

He could see the recognition of his answer flash in Sydney's eyes, too. He'd heard the fury in her voice the first time; seeing it was something different, something horrible. He'd seen her look that way before—but never, ever at him.

Lauren laughed again.

"Let her go."

Sark's voice. Sark. Lauren. _Sydney_.

_Is she with him right now?_ Lauren had taunted, in the hotel where he and Nadia had found her. _Is that why she isn't here with you?_

She'd gone to him before; to find Nadia. He understood that. But she was still with him now. They were _together_. And Sark was telling him to let Lauren go. Like he was some sort of rescuer, some white knight on a fucking horse.

He focused his eyes on Sark's face, spit, "Are you playing the gallant hero now? Is that it?" It made him sick. Thinking of Sydney working with Sark. Thinking of Sydney's tongue in Sark's mouth. He shifted his gaze to Sydney. "Is that why you're still with him?"

Sark's eyes narrowed—had he hit a nerve? good—and Vaughn heard him thumb the safety more than he saw it. He tightened his hold on Lauren. She wasn't laughing anymore.

"You'll have to go through her to get to me," Vaughn told him. Told _them_, he realized. God, this was so fucked up.

He was starting to feel dizzy. This was all so wrong. He should have been the one standing next Sydney, gun drawn, pointed at the bad guy. Except he wasn't. He _was_ the bad guy.

He grit his teeth. He was a bad guy now, so he had to start thinking like one. It was that, or get locked up, or die, here, in this church, trying to find a Rambaldi artifact he didn't even care about.

He owed Nadia. His life wasn't the only one he'd ruined.

Sydney's mouth tightened. "I don't care about her," she said.

He knew her too well; she couldn't fool him with that. "You'd never kill in cold blood, not like this," he said. "Not even her." He looked at Sark. "And it doesn't matter whether you care, because he does." He pushed the gun harder into Lauren's neck.

It was for show, he told himself. But there was a little thrill that shot through him: Violence. Vengeance. Things he'd never felt, until Lauren. Things he still didn't know how to handle.

Sark said something to Sydney that Vaughn couldn't here—and Sydney lowered her gun. For Sark. Because Sark asked her to.

Then Sydney straightened. Two seconds later, he knew why. Because he heard what she'd heard: Nadia's voice. Calling Sydney's name.

Nadia.

He froze. For a moment, he didn't know what to think. Sydney was calling out to her: "Nadia! I'm here! Where are you?"

"What are you doing?" He yelled it, but he wasn't thinking. She wasn't turning on him—she couldn't be. He was only here because of her. It had to be some kind of trick—something to get them both out of this. If Sydney went after Nadia, it would be one against one. Their odds were better.

Lauren's foot came down hard on his, and he hissed in pain, losing control of the gun for a second—just a second, and Lauren's knee connected between his legs. His vision went white, and he dropped, slamming his knees into the floor. The pain was so bad he lost all sense of himself the few moments before it subsided. Then he remembered. He was on the ground, in a church. Two guns on him. And his own gun feet away, out of reach. And Lauren gone.

"Bitch," he hissed, squeezing his eyes shut. He breathed in deeply, pushed himself off the floor, stood up with difficulty.

When he raised his head, Sark had his gun leveled at his chest. He lifted his hands shakily, still feeling the pain of Lauren's parting shot thrumming through him. _Fuck_.

He hoped Nadia's plan, whatever it was, left room for error.


	23. Part Twenty Three

**Part Twenty-Three**

Sark took even more satisfaction than usual in pointing his gun at Michael Vaughn. Then again, it could simply have been seeing Lauren ram her knee between the man's legs that was heightening the experience for him.

Sydney's sister was still calling her, and in his peripheral vision he could see Sydney hesitating.

"Sydney," he said quietly, keeping his gaze on Vaughn, "go after her."

She turned her head towards him, then looked back at Vaughn. "Are you sure—"

"Go," he assured her. She went.

Which left him, and Mr. Vaughn.

Sark smiled.

"You, Mr. Vaughn, are a very stupid man. I don't believe Sydney will ever forgive you for this."

Vaughn, quite admirably if in a fashion that was entirely out of character, ignored his jibe; he was staring after Sydney—but not in the way Sark would have assumed. No, Vaughn was staring past Sark, after Sydney, as if something were worrying him.

"She'll find her sister, Mr. Vaughn," he said, irritated at being cheated out of a satisfying, if easy to win, verbal skirmish. "There's no need to look so concerned."

Still nothing. Sark wasn't accustomed to being ignored . . . particularly by persons whom he was holding at gunpoint.

When Vaughn finally turned his attention back to Sark, he said, wearily, "Why not just go ahead and shoot me?"

Well. Sark considered him a moment, then replied, "I would, but I assume Sydney will want some answers."

There. The man had flinched. Perhaps there was hope for this little encounter yet. After all, he had to do something to pass the time until Sydney returned.

"She's quite angry at you, you know," Sark continued, measuring Vaughn's temper closely as he spoke. "That evening, following our encounter in the warehouse, she was really quite beside herself."

"And I bet you just offered to make it all better," Vaughn sneered, and Sark smirked.

"And if I did?" He injected his tone with innocence, exaggerating it, widening his eyes. "Would it be any of your concern?

"You . . . ."

"Because I believe," Sark interrupted, calmly but clearly, nodding to his gun to emphasize what Vaughn had nearly forgotten: that he, Sark, was in charge, "that once one kidnaps one's beloved's sister, one forfeits all rights in such matters."

"It doesn't matter." Vaughn's fist were had clenched delightfully. "She doesn't love you."

"No, but she also does not love you. Not anymore." He smiled thinly, in what he hoped was a particularly unsavory fashion. "Don't think for a moment I won't take advantage of that."

It wasn't that he hated Michael Vaughn, precisely. Vaughn seemed to be a serviceable agent, and a decent enough man, if one liked that sort of thing. In fact, he had of late rather begun to impress Sark, entirely against Sark's will: Sydney's sister's kidnapping, the more he learned about it, appeared more and more masterfully executed, something Sark wouldn't have previously believed the man was capable of. The personal ruthlessness needed to deceive—no, betray—the woman one loved . . . it was, if not admirable, certainly impressive, moreso in that it was something Sark himself had never been able to master.

No, the true intensity of his feelings toward Michael Vaughn stemmed not from an innate hatred of the man himself, but from what he had come to represent: the thing which stood between Sark and the women he desired. It had begun in earnest after Sark had begun working with Lauren after Sydney's return (though he suspected its seeds had been sewn over two years previous, seeing Sydney's clear devotion to the man and finding himself irritated for reasons that had only partly to do with Sydney herself), and had only intensified as time went on.

But now the tables had turned, and he, Sark, stood at Sydney's side, slept in Sydney's bed, had Sydney's ear, and Vaughn was on the outside, alone. He almost felt sorry for the man—almost felt compassion.

"She'll never fall for you," Vaughn said. "For your act."

Almost.

But not quite.

"Oh no? Then ask yourself this, Mr. Vaughn: Why is she with me now? If it was merely information she wanted from me, she could have had me hauled back to your precious CIA black ops headquarters—not yours, of course, anymore—and question me there. She was looking for companionship. For a partner. For someone," Sark emphasized, relishing the tension, the stricken look on Vaughn's face, as he stretched the sentence out, "on whom she could depend."

He was so looking forward to Vaughn's response, but was unfortunately cheated out of it by the loud crack as the floor beneath the altar—the altar that sat at a haphazard angle to the wall from whence he assumed it had come—gave way. Vaughn's head whipped around; he seemed to stiffen.

"Find what you were looking for, I take it?" Sark asked mildly. This was, he reflected, quite the stroke of luck. As it turned out, they had managed to find both the girl and the prize. "Well, go retrieve it," he told Vaughn magnanimously. "I'll wait." He gestured with the gun, but Vaughn didn't move, which Sark found rather tiresome. He repeated, "I said, Mr. Vaughn, I'll wait."

Vaughn moved warily towards the altar, partially fallen now into the collapsed floor beneath it; the broken surface, which had seemed to all appearances to be made of stone, had fractured along a line that was more reminiscent of plaster—the edge was crumbly, and there was a fine cloud of dust still settling around it. Vaughn reached down, but instead of reaching into the hole, he dislodged what appeared to be a thin slice of stone from the seam between the lid and side of the altar box. Lauren, Sark realized with amusement, had been sitting atop the object of their search the entire time.

Vaughn stood again, eyes on the piece of stone he held flat with both hands. The care with which he treated the thing was curious: it wasn't with the religious reverence of a Rambaldi follower, or with the meticulous professionalism with which Sark would have handled it. Instead, his attention appeared to hold equal measures of fear and resolve.

Vaughn looked up at Sark. And then he said, "I wonder what's taking Sydney so long."

It was such an unexpected thing for him to say, that for a moment, Sark was thrown. It was, in fact, much more the sort of thing he would have expected himself to do: try to throw off the balance of power, try to turn the tables.

"I don't hear Nadia calling her anymore," Vaughn continued, "but they aren't back yet. Something must have happened."

Sark narrowed his eyes. "Sydney can take care of herself," he replied crisply. "As I'm sure you're aware."

The other man's smile was grim. "So," Vaughn said, "can her sister."

Sark felt metal press against the base of his skull—round, hard, cool, and, he assumed, connected to the barrel of a gun.

"Drop it."

He kept from stiffening only from years of practice—it was unnerving to the enemy, and he'd learned it specifically for that reason. But he felt that cold tingle of alarm shoot up his spine all the same. The tables, it appeared, had in fact been turned.

"Vaughn," the voice, female, thick, called over his shoulder, "let's go. And you—put the gun _down_."

"Ms. Santos?" he guessed mildly as he stooped to place the weapon on the floor. He came up again with his hands raised. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I can't find the gun," Vaughn interrupted. He wasn't looking at them; his eyes were scanning the ground

"I don't suppose," Sark attempted delicately, "I could talk you into assisting me in taking Mr. Vaughn into custody?"

"Vaughn," Nadia said again, more sharply, as Vaughn continued to search for his fallen gun. Sark had seen it skitter to the far side of the ostentatiously gilded display of a crucified Jesus when Lauren had hit him, but didn't volunteer the information. "Vaughn. Now. We need to go."

Interesting. He wanted to turn around and assess her face, but was unsure of exactly his latitude. Both he and Sydney had obviously misjudged her darling baby sister. Or else there was significantly more to this than either of them knew. What was clear, however, was that Nadia and Vaughn, no matter how their association may have begun, were now working together. In fact, if he was not mistaken, it appeared that Nadia Santos was the one calling the shots.

"Where's Sydney?" Vaughn asked.

_Where's Sydney indeed_, Sark echoed silently, turning grim. Would Nadia have hurt her? Badly?

"Upstairs," Nadia answered. "Unconscious."

"We're just going to leave her there?"

"He'll find her." Sark assumed she was talking about him. So she must not be intending to shoot him. That was a comfort. "But we need to go. Did you find it?"

"Yes."

"Good." To Sark, she said, "Lay down, on your stomach."

"I prefer the missionary position."

"The longer you make jokes," she said, the tremor in her voice nearly but not quite concealed, "the more blood Sydney loses before you can get to her."

_Sydney Bristow's sister_, he thought as he lowered himself to the ground belly first. In other circumstances, he would have enjoyed making her acquaintance.

He lay there on his stomach, waiting for Nadia Santos and Michael Vaughn to leave, for precisely 516 seconds, each of which he counted carefully, calmly, as he worked to ignore the rank scent of the stone floor scant centimeters beneath his nose.

He was off the floor and up the stairs the moment the far door fell shut behind them.

When he found Sydney, she was motionless. His heart—that unused, stiff, painful muscle he often tried so hard to forget entirely—seized up. _Fear_, he realized, tasting it on his tongue as he abandoned all pretense of caution and fell to his knees at the side of her sprawled figure. Fear for her.

"Sydney," he said urgently as he lay his hands on her, gingerly at first, then firmly, almost frantically. "Sydney, you have to wake up."

He rolled her onto her back, checked for her pulse, lifted her lids to ensure proper dilation. This was Sydney Bristow. She had more lives than a cat. Surely she was all right. Any moment she'd wake and look at him, and snarl something, or else kiss him, either one, he didn't care, they were both preferable to this . . . this. . . _stillness_. She looked too fragile: the small bones of her face, the light freckles across her nose and cheeks—he adored those freckles, had he told her that?—the slenderness of her strong body. There was blood at the base of her skull, clotted in her hair, but she'd been through worse. He'd done worse to her himself.

"Sydney!" He shook her. "Sydney, _please_!"

The first sign of life was the low moan from deep in her throat, and with it came a rush of relief, of joy, in his body, so strong it was painful. He refrained from embracing her—what if she were hurt more than he had been able to ascertain?—and contented himself by stroking his thumb across her cheek and she winced, forehead drawing together, before opening her eyes.

"You're all right," he said soothingly, as much to comfort himself as her. "I've got you. You're all right."

"Sark," she breathed, and closed her eyes again lightly, and something within him soared. She could speak; she recognized him. And she hadn't responded with fear, or panic, or loathing.

"Yes," he confirmed, eagerly. "Yes. Can you sit up?"

"Give me a second." She was breathing deeply, if somewhat less evenly than he would have liked, and so he pulled back to let her come back into herself. Her wrists flexed, then her ankles, and she drew up her knees.

He studied her tensely. Her color was starting to come back, a faint stain high on her cheeks, but was hardly conclusive as to her state of health. "How are you feeling?"

"Headache. A little nausea. Normal, for a head wound."

"I see you've located the cause of your distress," he commented wryly.

"The physical cause," she confirmed, and lifted a hand to touch the back of her skull. She opened her eyes to look at what her fingers brought away. They were reddish-brown, and sticky. "How far gone are they?"

"Far," he said, though it was a lie. He wouldn't risk her health, not over them. They could resume the chase later. "You know, then? That your sister and Michael Vaughn are working together?"

"'Know' is a little strong. I couldn't think of another explanation. I assume you managed to confirm it while I was . . . out." The tenor of her voice shifted, trembled on the edge of breakdown. She looked up at him, and her vulnerability was scrawled across her face. "She hit me."

"If she'd intended to kill you, I have no doubt she could have," he offered. It was poor consolation, he knew, but a consolation, he hoped, all the same. "I only knew something had happened when I felt the gun at the back of my neck."

For one horrible moment, of course, he'd thought it was Sydney—that this whole thing had been some elaborate con in order to take him into custody. It was impossible—at least, it was so unlikely as to be nearly so—but the thought had possessed him nonetheless. He wasn't ashamed of it. Calculating all the odds, being prepared for any eventuality, was what he was singularly good at, it was what had kept him alive thus far. But it had made him wish, fleetingly, for another way—for a life in which he might allow something to surprise him, because the surprise could be a good one. A life in which he was not endlessly wary of betrayal.

Sydney looked ashamed, and it took him a moment to realize it was for him, on his behalf—that she felt bad that she had put him in that position. That she had let him down. "I never even thought—"

"Why should you have?" he soothed. "We thought we were here to rescue her." There was no point in recriminations. Besides, Sydney's stalwart belief in that, where he would have, as a matter of sensible course, accounted for the possibility that Nadia Santos was not in need of rescuing at all, no matter what they'd seen in their previous encounter, was what separated them, and what he loved in her, and what he wanted, desperately, completely, feverishly, for himself: her unfailing trust.

And then she was crying, and he was pulling her close, shifting their bodies to cradle her in his lap, and it was enough, just then, to hold her—to know she trusted him this much.

"We'll go home for now," he told her, rocking her, stroking her hair, burying his face in the crook of her neck, breathing her scent. "We can decide what we want to do from there."

He felt her nod against him, and he held her tighter.

-

On the plane back he watched her sleep, tense and curled in on herself in a single seat when she had her choice of spaces, the sleeping quarters in the back included. He left messages for Lauren, in a low voice, at every number she'd ever given him, and a few others he knew besides. She was, for the moment, their best source of information, as well as having proved willing to assist previously, and might be talked into believing she owed them for their role in her escape. He wasn't so foolish as to assume tender feelings for him might factor into the equation, particularly given their association's ending the year before, and there was a strong possibility that she might not return his calls at all—the information she'd funneled to them previously appeared to have served her needs more than theirs. Lauren, after all, did nothing solely out of the good of her capricious heart. To be honest, without her, they had no source of information at all. Michael Vaughn had been careful.

More than all that, however, he was worried about Sydney. Once her tears had finished she'd withdrawn. She'd hardly spoken two words since they'd left the church, and while she had often proved her remarkable resilience, he feared this particular blow might be the one that broke her. There had been too much, and too close—and while she had dealt with Michael Vaughn's betrayal once before, to have her sister betray her as well . . . . Sark imagined the betrayal of family, even after everything Sydney had experienced from hers, must be worst of all. He could not empathize; he could only do what he could to shield her, to protect her.

_I won't betray you_, he vowed silently as he watched her shift in the seat, _not this time, not like them_, but even he only half-believed his own words. He was, and always had been, in many ways a sorry excuse for a man; that fact simply hadn't troubled him until now.


	24. Part Twenty Four

**Part Twenty-Four**

Weiss was dead.

"Come home," her father instructed her over the telephone line—or not line, exactly, as the phone she held in her hand was wireless. "We can find Vaughn and Santos from here."

_Without Sark's help_, was unspoken.

Weiss was dead.

"No," Sydney said. Her voice was barely audible—insubstantial. So she didn't blame her father for failing to hear her, for failing to understand.

"There's no reason to stay there. You'll be of more use here."

"No," she said again, and that time he heard her, she knew because there was a long, hard pause.

"What do you mean, no?" His voice was steely. Baffled, but still steely.

"I mean, no." Sydney was sitting on a hammock strung out a hundred feet or so behind Sark's back door. Her feet didn't touch the ground. It was morning, early enough that the sky was still white. The world looked washed out. "I'm not coming home yet."

"I may not have been clear, before," he said, sounding careful in his speech, "but I wasn't asking. I am telling you, as your superior officer, to return to APO."

"You're _ordering_ me to come back?"

His tone was the same one he'd used when she was a child, and was being tiresome, because she'd wanted his attention—because she'd wanted his love. "Sydney—"

"Then I quit."

She hung up the phone. She thought of Weiss, Eric, lying unconscious in an agency hospital bed-- lying, soon, in a coffin. Because of Nadia. Because of Vaughn. Because of her. Eventually, she'd take her father back into her life. She knew better by now than to believe otherwise, no matter how she felt in the moment. In this moment. And he'd accept her back into APO, if she wanted to be accepted back. That was how it was between them.

But for now, she didn't want to deal with him, or with work, or with anything. She wanted the time to mourn. She wouldn't get that there; she'd be expected to snap into action, to do what had to be done, the way she always was—the way she always did. She couldn't do that this time. She didn't even know _what_ to do.

And, she admitted, she didn't want to leave Sark.

Not that she was acting like it.

She pulled her feet up into the hammock and wrapped her arms around her legs, hugging her knees to her chest. She felt like a little girl, lost in a world she didn't understand. In a sense, the fight with her father had been comforting—it had been normal. She wondered if that was why she was pulling away from Sark, as well: after all, being pleased to see him, feeling warm when he touched her, these things were not normal. They were just one more crazy thing on the list of crazy things about her life—a list that didn't ever seem to stop growing.

_Down the rabbit hole again_, Sydney thought with a sigh.

"Dinner is served," Sark called from the house, and when she turned to look at him, she saw he held the door open with one hip and was brushing his hands off, or drying them, with a gingham kitchen towel. "Dinner is late, but dinner is served."

She wasn't hungry, but she wanted to try—she wanted to try to eat whatever Sark had made for her because he'd made it for her, and because even a month ago, if someone had asked her whether she could ever imagine Sark in the kitchen, she would have laughed. And being domestic, being domestic with her, seemed to please him.

He was filling water glasses, towel slung over his shoulder, when she came in from outside.

"Talked to my father," she said as she sat down. There were fresh flowers in the glass bowl in the table's center, and he'd set out two forks.

"What did he say?"

"He—" She looked up at Sark, who was just sitting, smoothing the napkin down over his lap. He waited, eyebrows raising slightly. He'd be expecting an update on what APO had learned, or a recommendation on what step to take next. She pressed her lips together, and took a deep breath. "He said I should come home."

She knew she wasn't imagining it: the silence that followed was thick, and suddenly chilly, awkward.

"Ah," Sark said finally.

She didn't know why she still wasn't telling him the rest, reassuring him. What more did she need from him? Why did she need more confirmation that he cared about her, when he'd done so much, when he'd done more for her than she'd ever imagined he was capable of? _Why couldn't she trust him?_

Her throat was too tight; she couldn't push through air enough to speak. _Say something_.

"Well," he continued, face neutral, "I'm sure we can arrange a flight—"

"I told him no," she blurted. And waited.

He nodded carefully. He was still quiet, but the space between them warmed.

She pressed on, "I told him I was staying here with you. If I—if I can. If you'll still help me."

"Sydney," he said, smiling faintly, "you are welcome in my home for as long as you wish to be."

And that was all. He picked up a fork and began to eat his salad.

"Oh," she said, awkwardly picking up her own fork. "Well, thank you."

He nodded again. "Of course."

They ate in silence for a few minutes, the sound of the crisp lettuce leaves crunching between her teeth louder than she could have imagined. She still felt tense. She wanted to say more. She was going to say more.

"Sark," she started—and the lights flashed brighter once, twice. She looked up at the light fixture, which continued to light the room steadily as if nothing had ever happened, then at Sark. "What was that?"

"My alarm," he answered, furrowing his brow. "I can't imagine who that might be."

"You aren't worried?"

"There are other . . . deterrents."

Then the doorbell rang.

They looked at one another. There was a nothing awkward between them now—the fluid sense of understanding they'd had in the church, before . . . before, snapped instantly into place.

"Polite burglar," Sydney said. Her voice was tense.

Sark responded, voice murmuring, "Indeed."

There was a pause, and then Sydney asked, "Should you answer it?"

"I suppose I'd better." He stood, dabbed his mouth with the napkin in a small controlled movement, then lay it carefully on the table, beside his plate. "I keep a 9 mm in the silverware drawer."

"And that's . . ."

"The third one on the left."

While he went to the door, she opened the drawer and shifted its contents until she uncovered the gun. Releasing the safety, she made her way towards the front door as well, keeping her back to the wall. Sark had too many damn windows in his house; there was no way to sneak up on somebody. Though possibly that was the point.

She slid into place—her back still to the wall, invisible to the person on the other side of the door but with a clear shot should Sark shift a foot to either direction, just as he sighed audibly and opened the door.

"Sydney," he said calmly, a hint of resignation in his voice, "why didn't you tell me your mother was coming for dinner?"

-

"I've always loved your portabella and goat cheese ravioli," Irina Derevko told Sark, spearing the last bite and raising the fork lightly to her mouth. She chewed as she did most everything else—with the ghost of a secret smile playing at her lips.

Sark said, with poorly concealed irritation, "It's your recipe, Irina."

"Yes, but you've always made it better."

They were sitting, the three of them, at Sark's table, the meal he'd prepared for just him and Sydney rationed out for three. Sydney didn't mind; she was even less hungry now than she'd been before her mother's unexpected arrival.

Irina had been carrying on a steady output of small talk with Sark, ignoring Sydney, who sat directly across from her, entirely—which burned. Sydney had left their last interaction more divided on her mother than ever, relieved at receiving her help at the last but still angry at the lengths to which she'd had to go to obtain it. And then not hearing from her for so long, not that it was unusual to do so. . . . . It had been telling that one of the first possibilities Sydney had considered when she'd found Nadia gone involved Irina, betraying her, again.

Sark seemed alternately irritated and amused by her, but always wary, in a way he wore plainly. Sydney assumed Irina would expect no different, anyway—and it was, above all, smart. The best way to come out of any interaction with her mother alive, Sydney had learned, was to wear all her reactions on her sleeve. For anyone else but Irina's daughter (and Sark, apparently), it would have been a reckless, most likely fatal move. For Sydney, it took away Irina's best weapon: the ability to learn others' secrets without revealing her own. Simply giving way immediately, admitting openly to things others would try to conceal, was as close as one could come to leveling the playing field.

Halfway through her plate of ravioli, Sydney got tired of waiting, leaned forward, and narrowed her eyes. "Mom, what are you doing here?"

She smiled, that warm crinkling at the corners of her eyes that Sydney associated with Laura, with who she'd thought her mother had been. "Your father sent me."

Surprise was inadequate to describe Sydney's reaction. Shock, perhaps. Dumbfounded disbelief. Even putting aside for the moment the unexpected idea that her father had enlisted her mother's help at all, she hadn't realized they were in contact now at all. He hadn't mentioned it. And on the two or three occasions she'd brought up Irina this past year (it hadn't been often, she didn't like to think about the way Irina had manipulated her; it made her feel stupid, and uniquely helpless), his mouth had compressed into one thin, hard line, and she'd let the subject drop. He'd never gone into what had happened while he had been Irina's prisoner the year before (just as she'd never gone into details on her time with Sark), and she'd always assumed the worst. She hated acknowledging the idea that she might have been mistaken.

"Sent," Irina continued, her mouth quirking, "may be a little strong. He requested my help in finding Nadia, and mentioned that you were here. I was . . . in the neighborhood." She said it so sensibly, as if it made perfect sense, as if it had been an entirely reasonable thing to do.

"When I didn't give you this location," Sark said mildly, "it was for a reason, Irina. You know that, right?"

She didn't seem offended. "It was an emergency, Sark. One of my daughters is missing."

Sydney laughed once, harshly. "If you care about Nadia so much, where were you when _your sister_ was having her kidnapped?"

A regretful smile tugged at the corner of Irina's mouth. "Where were you?"

Sydney shot up from the table. "I can't do this."

The chair fell behind her but she didn't look back. The sound of her name being shouted behind her as she rounded the stairs up to the room she'd stayed in those first few nights didn't permeate. She was too busy trying to hold on to her last shred of dignity, her professionalism. She was an adult, for God's sake. And Irina had never, really, been her mother.

Sark caught up with her as she fumbled with the doorknob. "Sydney, here," he said, and reached past her to open it with a practiced _snick_. He caught her by the opposite arm before she could enter, swinging her to face him. "Sydney. Tell me what's wrong."

She twisted out of his grip—it wasn't as tight as it could have been, just like her struggles weren't as earnest, a pantomime of the relationship they'd had before, once upon a time when she was good and he was bad, and no matter what you had to give up to win, you gave it—and said, "Don't."

He grabbed her again, pushed her up against the doorjamb, which made her angry. She'd slept with him—she was staying in his house—but that didn't mean he had the right to do that. She was a grown woman; she wouldn't be treated like a recalcitrant child. Not by him, and not by Irina. "Let me go."

"I won't," he said calmly, that deadly even calm that had always scared her, just a little bit, in the field, "not until you tell me what's wrong. You've been quiet since we left Marseille, and I understood that. But you can't just walk away from me this way." Something tensed and released in his jaw. "I won't have it."

"You 'won't have it'?" she demanded. "Don't try to control _me_ just because my mother showed up and you aren't in charge anymore."

He said, "So that's your trouble."

"Are you psychic, now?"

He laughed, but it had a harsh edge. "Hardly. Clearly Irina's presence has triggered some sort of overwrought emotional reaction that you're now taking out on me."

"If you'd just let me go like I asked," she snapped, pushing against his hold, "I wouldn't be taking it out on anyone."

"You'd be taking it out," he said, "on yourself."

But that was how she preferred it: internalizing her anger, letting it beat against her insides until she was too tired and sore to feel it anymore. It's what she preferred with this kind of anger, anyway: the kind that did no good. The kind that never went away. The kind her mother always sparked in her, every time. She felt tears start.

"Sydney," he murmured, and pulled her close to him, put his arms around her, and she let him. She closed her eyes and let his presence comfort her in a way she usually didn't allow herself.

"Eric is dead," she said into his chest. "He died yesterday. Dad told me. And now I can't even take the time to be sad, because _she's_ here."

"You hate her that much?" he asked softly, and it took her a few moments to find the right words to answer with.

"When I was little, I wanted to be just like her. Then I found out who and what she really was, and it occurred to me: that's why it was so hard to live up to who she'd been—because she'd never been that person. She was someone else." Sydney swallowed, feeling the burn of panic still after all this time. "Someone I didn't even know. Someone who, because I was her daughter, her blood, I was in danger of becoming."

"You are not your mother," Sark said fiercely, and the heat behind it surprised her.

"I know," she said. She rested her forehead on his shoulder. "I know I'm not. All this time I was afraid of turning into my mother. But I'm not. I'm turning into my father. He always says he's done with her, that she's betrayed him for the last time. He says it every time, and it's never true. He pretends it's because he needs her to find me, or to catch Sloane, or whatever other stupid excuse he can come up with, but it's really him that wants her. He can't stay away from her." Her hand gripped his arms harder. "It's disgusting. It's unforgivable. I want to hate him for it. But I do the same thing! I'm the same way! I shouldn't trust her, she's done nothing but lie to me and hurt me over and over again, but I see her . . . I see her and I want to believe. I do. Even though I know it's a mistake."

Around her, as she'd spoken, Sark's hold had gone cold, and stiff. "And I'm just like her," he said quietly, and that's when she noticed the change.

That wasn't what she'd meant, that wasn't what she was talking about at all, but the moment he'd said it aloud . . . it clicked. She wanted to deny it. She wanted to deny it, but she couldn't. She felt sick, horribly sick—and angry. At herself, for being so twisted up, and at him, for being who he was, for doing the things he'd done, and still making her want to trust him, making her want him—for not being someone else.

Because she did want him, even standing there, him barely touching her, her own mind swirling with a thousand other things. He was so bound up in her memories, in her thoughts, with pain, and yet that didn't seem to matter when it came to that pull deep in her belly. He hurt her now, too, but in different ways—ways that had nothing to do with the things he did (he'd been nothing but kind, nothing but patient) and everything to do with how horrified she was that it was so easy to forget everything that had gone before. She deserved to be betrayed; _she deserved it_. If she was going to be this stupid, she deserved everything she got.

She pushed him away, and stumbled blindly through the door. This time, he didn't stop her.


	25. Part Twenty Five

**Part Twenty-Five**

Alone, Sydney couldn't even cry. What Sark had said—what she had said—it all turned around and around inside of her with no outlet, keeping her restless, keeping her wracked with self-loathing. When a particularly punishing round of her usual fitness regime (sit-ups, push-ups, kickboxing moves modulated for a non-existent opponent) didn't do anything to ease the turmoil, she pulled on the stiffly dried swimsuit she'd hung there in the adjacent bathroom, back when the bathroom had been hers, and took the back way down to the pool. Avoiding him. But out of kindness, this time; she was spoiling for a fight, energy coiled up in her limbs, and she at least owed it to him to spare him that.

She started out swimming laps, hard and fast, her breaths short as they forced the air down into her reluctant lungs, but after a dozen trips across the pool and back, she slowed to a steadier pace, the edge taken off.

Ten minutes after she'd lowered herself into the water, Sark appeared. She paused when she saw him, pushing her hair back from her face with wet hands, readying herself for whatever he might have to say, but he didn't speak to her; he hardly even looked at her. He just adjusted the waistband of his swim trunks and dove into the water at the far side of the pool.

When it became clear he wasn't heading for her—appeared to be ignoring her, in fact—she sunk down further into the water, and closed her eyes, feeling strangely subdued, as if his presence had made her that way. She laid her head back and stretched out, breathing deeply and letting the water hold her up.

He swam laps silently as she floated, staring up at the glass of the ceiling, at the stars beyond it, every one of them clear and bright in the murky sky. The sound of his arms entering the water as he stroked—sloppy form, to hit the water so hard—soothed and agitated her at the same time. It made it impossible to pretend he wasn't there.

_And I'm just like her_. He wasn't wrong. The unclear motivations, the amused half-smile, the raised eyebrows: sleeping with Sark was like sleeping with her mother. They presented the same mix of thrill and trepidation, the same heady cocktail of risk and potential reward, the same feeling of illusory power that came with knowing the betrayal was coming by and leaving your front door unlocked.

Except . . . Sark had never, technically, betrayed her. She'd never given him the chance. It wasn't the same as it was with Irina, where every time she hoped, and every time she ended up disappointed—every time she just ended up discovering new lies, affairs that made her skin crawl and sisters she didn't know existed. (Her sister—another mistake in judgment, but one she refused to regret making.) She'd broken faith with him, at least as often as he had with her. But now, things were different. They felt different. And he'd done nothing at all since things had changed to earn her distrust—nothing, at least, other than remind her of her mother.

She hated how Irina's presence always mucked up her thoughts. She hated how even when Irina wasn't there, her existence somehow managed to color everything Sydney saw, and everything Sydney did. And she hated that Weiss was gone, and that she'd lost Nadia, and Vaughn. She hated all of it. Except for Sark. And God, she almost didn't have any energy left for distrust anymore. She just wanted to believe. She didn't want to have to think anymore about who she could trust, and who she should trust; it wasn't something that came easily to her to begin with.

And choosing who to trust by working carefully, sensibly through the angles clearly hadn't protected her this far, so she might as well try something else for once. How much worse could it get?

There was only so much she had left to lose.

She thought she might start with her swimsuit.

She lowered the strap off of one shoulder, and then the other. She pushed the suit down, releasing her breasts, baring her belly to the water and the pale, wavery lights that swam beneath the surface. Her skin looked pale, almost blue, and distorted from the ripples her movements created across the top of the water. She worked the wet suit down over her hips and thighs, feeling the cool flow of water over the cluster of close-shorn curls between her legs, then finally let the fabric drift the rest of the way to the swimming pool floor. She stood that way, her shoulders smooth and bare above the surface, her body shadowed beneath it, for another few laps before Sark saw her.

She knew the moment he did. He missed a stroke; his body plunged forward and she thought it might be the first time she'd ever seen him thrown. He came up still choking.

He seemed genuinely shocked, and it almost made her smile. Almost. There was a different energy building in her body, now, one that reminded her how long it had been since she'd had his mouth on hers, since the airplane bathroom, since before that, here, in his home, in his bed. Her hunger for him, rising as it did almost from nowhere, with the force of a flood held back behind a dam, was stronger than she would have expected, and it nearly staggered her.

He just stared at her for a moment, and then ducked under the water; she could just trace his movements as he cut across the pool towards her. He surfaced only a few feet away.

"Sydney?" he said, a hint of dubiousness in his tone.

"Sark," she returned evenly.

As he took her face in his hands and kissed her, open mouth to open mouth, she wondered faintly about their insistence on identities—on naming each other over and over again.

He guided her backwards until her back hit the wall, her shoulder blades scraping against concrete and the pulse of a water jet suddenly insistent against her low back. His skin was wet, slick, unbelievably appealing; she dug her fingers into his shoulders as he stroked his tongue against hers and tilted her hips into his with his hands. She moaned—he was hard, pressing the rough fabric of his swim trunks against the sensitive inside of her parting thighs—and he slid his hands over the curve of her bottom, hiked her legs up around his waist.

She squirmed closer, tried to push his trunks off with her thighs, but he pinned her against the side of the pool, body tight against hers, hands anchoring her head as he kissed her: her mouth, her cheek, her jaw.

"You are so, so lovely," he breathed into her ear, and she shivered and bucked against him.

"Sark," she gasped, "please. . . ."

He eased a hand down her body, along her stomach, beneath one thigh, easing it higher—and slid one finger inside her.

"Is this what you were looking for?" he murmured, rocking his hand against her.

She bit his mouth in answer, and he laughed, roughly, slid a second, then a third, finger inside. "Yes, ma'am."

He held her there, moving inside her, his thumb barely brushing against her curls, what felt like forever. There were just his fingers, and the water, and the sky above them, and she was so happy, she felt like crying. When he released her, she couldn't keep her legs; she slid until her feet touched the pool floor, and would have slid further if he hadn't caught her.

"Turn around," he said softly.

She did, shakily, legs still weak, bracing herself on the rough concrete wall. She lost the feel of him for a few moments, but then he was there, completely naked now against her, pulling her securely against him. He kissed her neck, her shoulder; he slid his hands down to the front of her hips as she pushed back into his.

"Let me have you," he whispered, and she relaxed into him, shifting her weight forward into his hands and letting him carry her. She felt weightless; she felt almost free.

Then he shifted her higher, and the jet of water she'd felt before at her back was positioned at the juncture of her thighs. She hissed in breath, and squirmed in his hands. Banding one arm across her belly to hold her there, he used the other to spread her thighs.

He slid easily inside her as she gasped and flung back her head. "Oh, _God_."

"Shh," he urged—soothing her, not asking for silence—and began to thrust, slowly, steadily, then with increasing speed as she began to whimper.

She braced her hands on the side of the pool and squeezed her eyes shut, focusing on the feel of him moving into her, over and over, his hands on her hips, the water rushing around the place they were joined.

Her hips bucked helplessly once, twice—and her body exploded, clenching around him like a vise, her fingers gripping for purchase on the cement edge.

He rocked his hips once more, and then came as well, his own hands gentle as he held her body tight against his own.

"Feeling better?" he asked her as she turned in his arms and let herself be pulled into their embrace.

She tucked her wet head under his chin, closing her eyes and rubbing her cheek against the slippery skin of his chest. "Yes. Thank you."

"As might have been obvious there at the end, it was my pleasure."

"No, Sark." She looked up at him, sliding her hand along his neck to keep him with her, looking at her. "_Thank you_. For all of this. For letting me stay here. For being patient with me. I—" She shook her head slightly, laughed unsteadily, surprised at the realization even as she voiced it. "I couldn't have asked for a better friend." She leaned up and kissed him, tasting the chlorine on his lips before he parted them to allow her access.

"Just a friend?"

She laughed again, a little giddy this time. "Let's start with friend."

She kissed him again, contact he drew out until she was nearly out of breath. He might have gone on—except—

They broke their clinch at the same moment, Sark shifting to shield her from view and Sydney letting him as they both turned towards the doors leading back into the house.

"Well," Irina said, "this is an unexpected twist."

She was standing beside the pool, in front of the double doors, arms folded in front of her chest. She was still wearing her clothing from before—gray slacks, black turtleneck, hair pulled back into a low ponytail—though she was barefoot now. Making herself at home.

"This is somewhat of a private moment, Irina." Sark's voice was measured, cool.

"I can see that."

Sydney was silent, caught between embarrassment and a renewed anger, seeing her mother standing there so calmly, the amusement on her face as insulting as anything Irina had ever said or done to her. Like this was some sort of joke. Like everything around her was a game, and one she was in control of.

"Did you need something," Sark asked, "or did you simply feel a belated desire to protect your daughter's virtue?"

The amusement shifted into a more neutral expression. "I thought we could discuss Nadia, and Rambaldi's prophecy—if Sydney was . . . feeling better."

"We'll meet you in the dining area shortly," Sark said. He didn't consult with Sydney, but at the moment, she didn't care; she just wanted her mother out, and she wanted to put some clothing on. She wanted to get this discussion over with, so she could go back to trying to cope with the reason they were having the discussion to begin with.

"That will be fine." Irina inclined her head before leaving.

Sydney turned and rested her forehead against Sark's shoulder, feeling comforted by the simplicity of it: heat against heat, skin against skin. Straightforward. Easy to understand.

"I'm sorry," he said, and she asked, wearily, "For what?"

"For not being able to kick your mother out."

Sydney laughed, the sound tired but genuine. "No one can kick my mother out. I wouldn't take it personally."

"Come," he said, squeezing her briefly before letting her go and pulling himself up out of the pool, "let's not keep Irina waiting. Heaven knows what she'll do to keep herself occupied."

Sydney closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and followed.


	26. Part Twenty Six

**Part Twenty-Six**

Nadia and Vaughn were both quiet on the drive back to Le Passager and Bill Vaughn. Nadia wondered how similar their reasons were, whether his were anything like hers. Hitting Sydney, knocking her out—that hadn't been as hard as she'd thought. What had been hard was leaving her. Trusting that Sark—Sark, a man she'd heard of but never met, and nothing she'd ever heard was good—would find her, get her help, and do it in time. Sydney had been there with him, working with him . . . but Sydney had been wrong to trust the people around her before. As the man driving the car she currently rode in could attest. As, now, could she.

Nadia shifted in her seat, physically uncomfortable in her own skin, grief-stricken—but still sure. Sure what she had done was the right thing. Sure that if Sydney knew the truth, if there was time to give it to her, that she would agree. That she would forgive her. Nadia's whole life was the way it was because of Rambaldi, because of these "prophecies" she knew almost nothing about. She didn't believe in prophecies, but she believed in their power, now. In what other people were capable of, because they believed. If she was going to survive this, she needed to know everything she could. Because if these past few weeks had taught her anything, it was that others would do these things—her part, in these prophecies—if she did not, and that there were ways to force her to do things she had no wish to do. Her only protection from it was knowing as much as, or more than, they did. Knowledge was her only possible power. Power to shape how Rambaldi's legacies were used. Power to save herself—and to save Sydney.

_The Chosen One and the Passenger shall battle, and neither will survive_—or _only one will survive_, depending on the version. It was the only Passenger prophecy the CIA—or rather, APO—had found (Bill Vaughn claimed to have others), but it was frightening enough. Particularly now—particularly as she had just learned that, were the circumstances right, she was capable of hurting Sydney.

That was what sat most heavily on her—that she had taken this on, made the choice to pursue Rambaldi's prophecies, to protect her sister (the one person who'd ever tried to take care of her without any ulterior motive) as much as anything else, and she had just left her on the floor, bleeding, while she fled. _For the greater good_, she told herself, but it was hard to really believe, hard to hold in mind. It always had been, for her. She felt more than she thought. Even when that wasn't the smartest thing to do.

Like now. She looked over at Vaughn, his profile highlighted by the bright daylight streaming in from the window.

"Hey," she said. His eyebrows lifted slightly, which let her know he'd heard her. "She'll be alright."

His knuckles turned white on the steering will. "I know."

They lapsed into silence again. He didn't seem interested in breaking it, and she wasn't willing to make another futile attempt. She hadn't realized how much she'd liked his smile until she stopped seeing it; the wrinkles in his forehead, the ones that made him look more thoughtful than she expected he really was, seemed permanently etched there now. She would have tried, maybe, to make him laugh, except she wasn't exactly in a laughing mood herself.

But that was what she would have done before—before all this, back in Los Angeles. Looking at it through the lens of the way she felt about him now, she saw those days differently. How often she'd tried to make him laugh; how frequently they'd had dinner when Sydney was stuck at work, and then after awhile lunch, just because they'd enjoyed each other's company. She hadn't thought anything of it at the time—he was her sister's, she and Vaughn were friends—but now she wondered: Why? Her own motives were what concerned her. His, she assumed, had to do with his work for Elena.

She remembered one time, it was late, the two of them were alone, Sydney—she wasn't sure where Sydney had been, just that she was supposed to be there, and she wasn't. Nadia had come to keep him company while he waited, poured them each a glass of wine, put down the book she'd been reading curled up by the fire. It was the first time it had been just the two of them. She'd been nervous—she'd realized it after almost a half hour, the vague queasiness of her stomach resolving itself all of a sudden, so obviously, into butterflies, into that giddy flutter she knew from dating, and missions: equal parts excitement and fear, foreknowledge of danger and reward. But mostly danger. She near trembled with it. Their fingers brushed as she took his glass to refill it . . . and Sydney came in, arms laden with grocery bags, and Vaughn had stood to help her and Nadia had gone into the kitchen with the wine glasses alone.

The car came to a stop at the side of the building. She got out immediately, without looking at Vaughn. One of Bill Vaughn's dark-suited doormen took Vaughn's place behind the wheel and drove the car away as another man held the door open for them to pass through.

The corridors were largely empty when they exited the elevator on Bill Vaughn's floor; shift change, Nadia assumed. Now that she was moving she felt the weight of the disk, the other half of the now-missing Lauren's, inside her vest—carefully wrapped to keep it safe, unbroken—more clearly. She had a moment, a second, maybe two, where she saw herself as if she was looking from the outside: how foolish this whole thing was, the word of a dead man directing so many people's lives; how arbitrary her presence walking down this hallway, this man following behind her, was. And then they were at the doors to Bill Vaughn's office, and the moment was gone.

Adou, the large black man from before, wasn't at his desk; the door was cracked open. Everyone went home sometime, of course. But it was strange that no one was here as a replacement—there was no guard.

Nadia paused, held up her hand to signal Vaughn.

"What is it?" He was barely audible, his voice not more than a breath at her right ear that unsettled her even as she focused her attention away, to the sound she thought she'd heard but now couldn't grasp.

"Not sure," she murmured. "I—"

And then they heard a shot.

Nadia was through the door before she remembered she didn't have a weapon on her. She went low, tackling the shooter just below the waist, from the back, and they both went down hard, with Nadia on top. The gun slid away.

"Oh God . . ." she heard Vaughn say as she scrambled up. And then she saw what he saw. Bill Vaughn's body, lifeless and bleeding on the floor. And Lauren, dragging herself to standing, blood smeared across the side of her face from where she'd hit Bill's body as Nadia took her down.

With a growl, Lauren launched herself towards them. Not towards them, Nadia realized belatedly as she threw herself out of the way and Lauren kept going. Towards the door.

Vaughn, slower to move, not completely out of the way, blocked her with his shoulder. She twisted to pass but he pushed and she stumbled back, into the desk, knocking the picture frames over, the papers going askew. She wiped at her nose with her hand, smearing blood, and Nadia could see she'd been crying—sobbing. Her skin was blotchy under the blood, her lips dry, her eyes red. Her hair was a mess from the fight. She looked almost feral. There was anguish, and fury, in her eyes. And she was holding a second gun.

"Lauren, _what did you do_?" Vaughn choked. Nadia wasn't even sure he registered the gun, only his father, dead, and Lauren, responsible.

"I killed him," Lauren hissed. And then she laughed, and it was the most horrible sound Nadia thought she'd ever heard. "I killed him, aren't you going to thank me? You hated him, this morning. You wanted to kill him too."

Nadia could see Vaughn struggle; his face was grim, his expression pained. And she saw the moment his eyes focused, finally, and he saw the gun. He put his hands out, palms towards Lauren. "He was my father."

"He lied to you! He lies to everyone. I _loved him_. And he lied to me." Her hand shook, the gun wavering, hitting audibly against the wedding band still on her finger.

Vaughn's jaw spasmed. "What are you talking about?"

"He sent me to you so you could kill me! I loved him like a father, and the whole time—the whole . . . ."

"You're angry with him," Nadia said. She kept her voice low, wanting to keep her talking, not wanting to pull her attention off of Vaughn.

"Lauren," Vaughn said, "just put the gun down. You aren't getting out of here. Someone heard that gun shot."

_Good_, Nadia thought. _Keep it up_. She took a cautious step to the right.

"This is _your_ fault," Lauren cried. "I married you, and he was my father, and you're the one who messed it all up! You couldn't let her go, and when she came back—"

"Sydney?" Vaughn sounded incredulous. Nadia slid further around; Lauren didn't even seem to realize she was there anymore.

"I would have been happy, just being your wife, being his daughter, working for him and him alone. It's _your fault_ I got mixed up with the Covenant. Otherwise, I never would have had to betray you!"

Nadia moved. So did Vaughn.

Nadia caught Lauren's left arm as it came up to block her attack. Nadia grunted; the unexpected impact shook her, destabilizing her stance, putting her off-balance enough that Lauren's gun-assisted blow to her solar plexus was able to send her staggering backwards, the breath knocked from her lungs. Vaughn grabbed Lauren's wrist, deflecting the barrel of the gun just before it discharged, and then wrestled it from her grasp. But before he could turn it, point it, Lauren landed a sharp elbow to the side of his head and dove for the door. Nadia was too winded to stop her. She caught Vaughn's arm before he could follow.

"Not now," she gasped out. Immediate danger past, the adrenaline in her blood beginning to thin, the reality of the situation was sinking in. Bill Vaughn was dead. "There's too much we need to do before someone finds out he's dead."

-

It wasn't the first time she'd been alone with a dead body.

Vaughn was in the vault with the access card and keys he'd taken off his father's still, cooling form, collecting what he could there, and so she was on her own in the office. She ignored Bill Vaughn's sprawled body as she downloaded files off his computer, taking everything that looked remotely related to the Passenger and the prophecies. She left the file marked with Vaughn's initials and birthday; it seemed better, for Vaughn's state of mind, that he not see it, whatever it contained. And better for her: in a purely pragmatic sense, she needed him. To help her get out of here, and after that. She didn't have the contacts he did; he'd been in the business longer, and the CIA was better connected than her Argentinean bureau. Without him, she'd be on her own.

While the computer transferred the files onto the flash drive she'd found in his front desk drawer, she searched the rest of the desk. Financial and selected personnel files in the right side; packs of m&ms and bottles of water and a handgun in the left. Nothing useful but the gun. He kept his workspace clean.

Tucking the gun in the back of her waistband, she checked the door again for opening up the PDF of the building blueprints she'd discovered on the network. She'd cracked the door far enough that she'd be able to see anyone coming as they turned the corner, and she kept half her attention on that space as she reviewed the plans. They'd have to go back the way they came in; it was the best way. As long as no one had realized Bill Vaughn was dead.

She really hoped Lauren knew a way out that she did not. A way that didn't involve anyone noticing the blood on her clothes and skin.

File transfer complete, she put the cap on the flash drive and slipped it into her bra—it was safer there than her pocket, harder to find if she were searched. And she found herself studying Bill Vaughn's dead body.

He had been a handsome man; his son took after him. His blood-stained, bullet-split shirt had been well-tailored. Expensive, but not showy. Understated. Almost crafty. As she suspected Bill Vaughn had been. She knew she ought to feel something for him; anger at his role in her removal from her mother so many years ago, regret at his death. Dismay at the loss of his Rambaldi knowledge. But it would be easier without him. She didn't have to worry about his real motivations, or his loyalties. She would have full access to the files, and to whatever Vaughn managed to procure. She wouldn't have to worry whether Elena had told Vaughn the truth, about him being a threat to Sydney. It would be easier.

It was times like this—times when she knew she should be responding to things differently, more humanly, more like Sydney—that she wondered if the reason she had never truly felt comfortable with her sister, as much as she'd wanted to, as much as she loved her, was because she simply didn't have it in her.

Vaughn slid into view around the corner, and she stood quickly from her crouch by his father's body to join him. She didn't bother to clean up, to wipe down the things she'd touched. After this, they'd have to disappear anyway.

She didn't look back.


	27. Part Twenty Seven

**Part Twenty-Seven**

They'd been at it all night.

It was 3 a.m. now, the inn was quiet all around them, the world outside the windows of their first floor room—and she'd insisted on the first floor (more and easier escape routes)—still. They'd turned out the ceiling light hours ago, worked now side by side, but separate, by the light of twin table lamps. Twin beds stood untouched behind them.

Nadia felt them there as she weeded through her half of the stolen files. She felt weary all the way to her bones. It had been difficult, reading her own history, but not as hard, somehow, as reading the others'—the ones who had almost been the Passenger, other lives she could have lived. The Russian ice skater who was forced to give up on her dream; the Austrian girl with the deformed hand who killed herself three years after being "released" from the program; even Lauren. They'd become agents, most of them. But not all. She imagined living a life away from all of this. She imagined working at a law firm—she liked the idea of it, sitting behind a prosecutor's desk, working for justice—maybe in Washington, DC—and one day, perhaps, at the coffee cart outside the court house—no, the coffee shop a block away, where she went every morning, where the baristas all knew her name and that she liked her coffee black with three sugars, except when she'd just won a case, then she got a triple caramel latte instead—she meets this guy, he says his name is Michael, he's just been transferred into town. . . .

"I can't do this anymore." Vaughn pushed the laptop he was working on forward, his chair back.

It scraped hard against the floor, and Nadia winced. When her eyes closed, they stung and watered. She opened them again to see Vaughn scrubbing his hands over his face.

"I need a break."

"You're right," she said, and forced a smile. "We both do. Do you want something to drink? I saw a vending machine a few doors down when we came in."

"No," Vaughn said. "No." He'd stood as she spoke, went to the window, and was leaning now against the sill, his back to her.

"A 'thank you, though,' would have been nice," she said.

He turned his head. "I'm sorry," he said. His profile was illuminated from behind. "I just—"

"I know," she said. "You don't have to explain. You're tired. I am too."

He laughed, a short, despairing sound. "It's been a very long couple of weeks, hasn't it?"

It had been. She thought of who she'd been a month ago—before she'd woken up strapped to a chair with Vaughn keeping watch, before Elena, before Bill Vaughn—and couldn't even fathom it, couldn't remember, not really, who she'd been then. There was too much separating her _then _from her _now_.

"We should get some sleep," she suggested. She ejected the disk and pushed the top of the computer down until it closed.

"I don't know if I can." He was back to staring out the window. She wondered what he saw, through the gaps in the blinds—what he was looking for.

"You should still try. Rest your eyes." She tucked the disk back into her bra—still the safest place she could think of—then joined him at the window, intending to draw him away.

"You're trying to take care of me," he observed, and she confessed, "I am, a little. I need you—your help." She lay her hand over his on the window sill, hoping the gesture came across as sisterly, simply kind. A physical expression of concern.

He shifted to squeeze her fingers, and all of her warmed.

"We've done enough for the night," she said.

"You're right," he said, and turned, caught her chin in his hand, and kissed her.

She'd barely felt the contact, only just realized it was happening and felt her body flood with heat, when his lips were gone again, the impression of them just a tingling on her own.

"I'm sorry," he breathed, casting his eyes down, hand still cupping her jaw.

"Me, too," she said, and tilted her head, and captured his lips again.

After all, he hadn't moved away.

The kiss was soft, a bare brush of her mouth against his, but he groaned as if she had reached down into him and drawn out his soul. His other hand came up to the other side of her face, anchoring her mouth under his to kiss her again, and she felt dizzy, gripped his shirt to stay upright. The scent of him—stale sweat and musk and heavy warmth—surrounded her as her lips parted to allow him access to her mouth.

She wanted him to have access to everything.

She slid her arms around his neck, brought her body full into contact with his. If her mouth had been free, she would have moaned.

He was the one who broke the kiss—of course he was—but she locked her arms, didn't let him pull away.

"This isn't right," he said.

She took a breath, blew it back out slowly, then met his eyes. "Sydney is with Sark, now. You saw that, didn't you?"

"That's not—" The sound he made was frustrated, and he looked away, and back. "We're tired."

Something went hard inside her, and she gave in, let go. "I know."

She started to turn, and he stopped her. "I just need a little time."

-

He could tell what he'd said had upset her. He hated it—hated it even more now that he'd kissed her than he would have before—but saying it was better than the other things he could have said, the things busy clogging up his brain. _You're not Sydney. I'm taking advantage. I can't._

He hadn't expected to kiss her. Hadn't meant to. Had only meant . . . . He didn't know. He didn't know what he meant. He cared about her—of course he cared about her—but even if . . . . This wasn't the right time. There was too much going on. His father was dead. Dead again. Thanks to Lauren. And Nadia . . . .

God, he was so tired he couldn't keep his eyes open. Even his thoughts were blurry. His body ached with longing to rest, to sink into the hard hotel bed, under the scratchy polyester spread, and to feel the stretch all though his muscles before they released into sleep. . . .

He forced his eyes open again and found Nadia had moved away from him, was pulling her chair back out from under the desk.

She turned to look back over her shoulder at him, face smooth and composed, as fresh as if she had just awoken but distant, with something in her eyes that made him feel uneasy. "I'm going to keep working," she said. "You should sleep. Don't argue."

He didn't. He felt, at least, he could give her that.

-

He had horrible dreams.

Sydney stood facing him, all in black, hair pulled tightly back from her face. Her eyes were unemotional. He was pointing a gun at her. He pulled the trigger. Sydney jerked, and fell to her knees. To the floor. He put the gun away, walked to her. Kneeled beside her and turned her body over, face up. Blood pooled around her. Her eyes were open, looking at him, still distant, still cool. "Some part of me," she said, "always knew it would be you."

He woke suddenly, gasping, heart hammering in his chest. Nadia was leaning over him, looking alarmed. "Vaughn?"

"I'm okay," he said. He was lying.

"Good," she said. Her face was grim, taught. "I found something."


	28. Part Twenty Eight

**Part Twenty-Eight**

Sydney sat as far away from Sark as from her mother. This was business. She wouldn't let Irina turn it into anything else. No matter what she'd seen.

There was a pleased glow to Irina Derevko's face when Sydney and Sark joined her in the sitting room. They'd changed first, or Sydney had—jeans, t-shirt, tight ponytail, gun. Sark had just pulled on a dark cotton robe. Sydney knew her mother would know she'd dressed because she wasn't comfortable being undone in front of her; she didn't care. She still wanted her clothes.

Sydney tried to guess at the reason for the glow. She wished she believed that her mother was simply pleased: her daughter and the boy she'd raised nearly as a son, together, taking—in a strange way—care of each other. But it was more likely that this just made them easier to control. Gave Irina more power.

"I'm sorry to have intruded," Irina said, sounding sincere. She said it in a way that indicated simply her presence there as much as walking in on them. "If Jack had—but he wouldn't have. Does he know?"

Sydney answered with stony silence.

"He suspects, then," Irina surmised—from nothing, but correctly. "I suppose he's not particularly pleased."

"Irina," Sark said with a patience Sydney wouldn't have—never had—possessed, "if you'd stop tormenting Sydney and tell us what you were so eager earlier to impart . . . ?"

"I do love my daughter," Irina said, addressing Sark but keeping her eyes on Sydney, "despite what you may have heard. I am interested in her welfare."

"I'm sure she'd be appreciative," Sark returned, "if you'd focus for the moment on your other daughter's welfare."

"So protective," Irina murmured.

"I merely wish to point out that there will be plenty of time to interrogate Sydney as to her association with me once Miss Santos is . . . ."

"Stopped," Sydney supplied, voice quiet but sure.

". . . stopped," Sark repeated softly.

Irina leaned forward in her chair, studying him. Sydney couldn't tell what she read there, but whatever it was, it seemed to put her off that particular subject for the moment, at least. She turned her attention, then, to Sydney.

"Sydney," she said in that way where it felt, if you weren't careful, as if she and you were the only people in the room, "I want you to know, it wasn't supposed to be this way."

_What wasn't?_ Sydney wondered silently, schooling her face for neutrality. It could apply to so many things.

"If I could have stopped this—" She shook her heard. "I tried. I might have succeeded, if you hadn't taken the disk."

"Oh yes," Sark said, "this is clearly all Sydney's fault." He sounded almost angry with Irina for it—but maybe that was part of the show. They both knew Sydney could take care of herself.

"It's the truth." Irina's voice was hard, now. "I could have controlled Elena; Sloane could not."

"What do mean, controlled Elena?" Sydney demanded.

"Elena raised your sister; she knew where she was, how to get to her. You made that more difficult for her, bringing Nadia into APO, but not difficult enough. And she had everything she needed to uncover Rambaldi's secrets—except the disk. When she proved unable to obtain it herself, she offered a partnership. Sloane took it. And failed to protect Nadia."

"He led us to her," Sydney said, before she could register that she was defending _Sloane_.

Irina's eyebrows raised. "And now where is she?"

"I'm not quite following," Sark interrupted before Sydney could do something intelligent like draw her gun. "Or rather, I'm failing to see the end result. How is this helping us find Miss Santos?"

Irina sighed, as if frustrated with them both for missing it. "I believe Nadia to be taking up Elena's work."

"That's insane," Sydney said. "Why would she do that?"

"It is prophecized," Irina said, as if that were answer enough.

Sydney's temper flared, but she suppressed it, hard. Losing her temper never got her anywhere with Irina—just captured, or hurt, or even more frustrated than she'd began. Sark, she noted, was sitting silently but attentively.

"What prophecy?" Sydney asked, emptying her voice of inflection.

"'The Passenger and the Chosen One shall fight, and neither shall survive,'" Irina quoted. The air took on a chill, suddenly; as always, Irina's voice had power other people's didn't.

Sydney crossed her arms—for warmth, for security—and hoped it made her look firm. "We know that one."

"There's more than you know. What you have heard is one line of many—one prophecy of many. And I have come to believe that even all together they would give an incomplete picture of what Rambaldi saw. It would be too dangerous. The one thing that is clear, however, is that there will be a battle, between the Chosen One and the Passenger, and that battle will be over the fate of all his works. And Nadia is the Passenger."

"That doesn't mean anything necessarily. Even if it's true—"

"It's true, "Irina said serenely.

"—the battle isn't necessarily soon. We can't even be sure I'm the Chosen One; I saw Mt. Sebacio."

"You are the Chosen One, Sydney." It was Sark, this time—quiet, sure. "I've seen too much of Rambaldi to believe he wasn't a prophet, and too much of you to believe you are anything but the one he saw."

That gave her more pause than anything her mother could have said to her: the simple sincerity, the belief, in his voice. She'd come to trust him more than she'd believed—his judgment, his word on things, at least. Things, at least, not involving her heart.

Her voice was doubtful, then, when she continued, "That still doesn't mean Nadia will take up Elena's work, will use the serum to—to channel Rambaldi herself. She'd—she'd have to be crazy."

But Irina wasn't looking at her anymore—she was focused, razor sharp, on Sark, who for the first time looked truly uneasy under her gaze. "Sark," she said, "you _love_ her."

Sydney almost laughed, feeling queasy about it, and looked to Sark for his denial.

He blew out a long breath, in which Sydney could feel his dislike of Irina. "As much as I am capable," he said quietly, meeting Sydney's eyes—then looking, intentionally, away.

Sydney felt a surge in her chest, a rush of feeling, unexpectedly painful. She wanted—she wanted to cry. Realizing he cared for her was one thing. This—this was something different. Something she didn't know how to deal with. She'd only just released her defenses; to be hit with this, so soon, it was . . . it was unfair.

Irina was shaking her head. "Ah, Sark."

And Sydney's discomfort turned to anger, and focused in on the usual target—her mother. "Enough!" she snapped. "Leave what's between Sark and me alone, and tell us what you came to tell us."

Irina smiled—approvingly—and said, "I brought you my collection—everything I know about Rambaldi, years of research, of planning, of shadowing my sister, Sloane. It's yours now."

Irina was always unpredictable, but this was beyond anything Sydney would have guessed. Sark's sharp intake of breath indicated he was if anything more surprised than she was.

Dumbfounded, Sydney asked, "Why?"

"Because Nadia, whether she has realized it yet or not, will puck up Elena's work. It's for you to do the same with mine."

"And what was yours?"

"To prevent as much harm as I was able."

Sydney shook her head. "I don't believe you," she said plainly.

"Sydney, you'll believe as you wish. You always have." Irina looked past them, eyes losing that sharp, knowing focus. She smiled sadly. "I hadn't wanted you two to meet, you know, you and Nadia. To care for one another. I would have spared you as much pain as I could."

Sydney let the doubt show on her face, and Irina looked, if anything, even sadder. She shrugged. "I'm only human, Sydney. I am not perfect; I cannot always achieve my aims. I've made mistakes."

_You could have done better than this_, Sydney thought bitterly—not for the first time, and not, she was sure, for the last. This time, though, her thoughts resonated with more than just the ways Irina had harmed _her_. "Where is all this research?" she asked, instead of asking how preventing harm could mean causing so much senseless suffering.

Without missing a beat, Irina twisted the circle of gold from her right ring finger, and handed it across the space between her seat and Sydney's. Sydney took it. She recognized it—the slim band, the dark blue stone. Her father used to wear its twin, stoneless and thicker, the other detailing identical. Laura Bristow's wedding ring.

"The most important files are encoded in the stone, along with the information to access the rest, which is housed on a secured server. Sark will have the appropriate readers."

Sydney held the ring between her fingertips, staring at it, a beat longer than she should have. Then she closed her left hand over it. "Thank you," she said automatically.

"I wanted you to have it," Irina said. "I only wish I could have found another way to give it to you and have you accept it." She could have been talking about the ring or the legacy; she was probably talking about both.

"If that's all . . ." Sydney said, starting to rise.

Sark's voice, soft but solid with intent, interrupted. "If you don't mind, I'd like to have a word alone with your mother before I show her out."

Irina gave a nod, but it was Sydney he was looking at. His eyes gave nothing away, though that was nothing new.

"Feel free," Sydney said finally. The edges of the ring bit in to her skin, imprinted her palm. "It's your house."

"Thank you, Sydney," he said, and it sounded . . . well, it sounded sincere.

It threw her. "You're—you're welcome. I'll be upstairs."

And though it took every ounce of strength she possessed, she simply turned and headed for the stairs. She didn't spare Irina a final glance.

-

"If you didn't approve," Sark said once Sydney had gone, "you could have simply said so. You didn't need to jeopardize it that way."

"Would you have listened?" He turned to look at her. She'd risen, too, after him, both waiting for the sound of Sydney's footsteps to trail off. "You don't give Sydney enough credit."

He studied her, standing there, so slender as to be nearly ethereal, so much power packed into so small a body. The woman he had occasionally, when it had suited him, thought of as his mother. "What do you mean to say, Irina?"

"You have my blessing, Sark." Her face was calm, a pond without ripples. It made him feel, as always, at peace.

He said, "That doesn't mean anything to me."

"Of course it does. It will to her, as well. Though she would fight it, which is why I did not tell her." She laughed. "I'm cruel, Sark, not foolish. I know my daughter."

"Not as well as you think."

"Better than you do."

She was right, and so he asked instead, "Why _did_ you come here, Irina? Just for this?"

"Just for this. To pass on what I know."

They stood there together in the low light of the sitting room, just a few feet apart. She had her arms folded close to her body—at rest, not because of vulnerability. Never that. It was something he'd learned from her, that fine line between the two, and how to blur the difference with his body.

"I met Miss Santos. Nadia," he said after a moment. "Sydney's sister."

Irina smiled, and her eyes closed briefly. Her head twisted, just slightly, as if she might hide it. "Was she beautiful?"

"Of course," he answered automatically. She was Irina's. "She has your . . . ." He trailed off, unsure how to phrase the impression he'd gotten, the cold steel on his neck and in her voice. "Your resolve," he finished finally. "Your peace."

Irina murmured, "If only Sydney did as well," and shook her head. "Take care of her, Sark, if she'll let you. She's like her father, that way."

Like Jack. He asked it as delicately as he could, truly curious as to the answer—which felt, in its way, important. "You and he . . . ?"

"It isn't the way it was," she said. Her eyes were haunted for a moment, he thought. A moment of true vulnerability, that she had chosen to share with him. "I've lost that." He wondered if she meant with Jack, or within herself. Or if that distinction mattered.

"I'm sorry," he said, at a loss for anything else, still calculating, trying to figure her intentions out.

"So is he," she answered, and finally released her arms, breaking the barrier between stillness and movement. Her mouth spread into a smile. "I've missed you, Julian."

"One does to grow accustomed to things," he said warily. _To people_.

"No," she said, "not me."

Once she had gone he sat in the room, alone, for a long time, absently tasting a glass of white wine, thinking. He considered the course of Irina's life—he tried to picture her as a girl, traveling to America, meeting Jack Bristow. But all he could come up with was Sydney, her straight chestnut hair, her larger doe's eyes. He wondered if Irina would tell Jack what she had learned—but no, he decided, she'd keep it to herself, another secret she would have, another way of holding herself above the man she loved. Did Jack love her? he wondered. Did it matter? Once Irina Derevko had you within her sights, Sark wasn't sure it could.

Sydney was sitting up in bed, naked, sheet tucked demurely across her chest and book open across her thighs, when he finally entered his room. Lamplight emphasized the curves of her face and softened the hollows. "I waited for you. You were down there awhile."

"Thinking," he said. He untied his robe, turned of the lamp, and slid, nude, into the bed next to her. "Irina left an hour ago."

"I know, I heard." As he settled onto the pillow, he felt Sydney move closer. Not touching him, but close to him, on her side. "I'm . . . not sure what to say."

"You don't need to say anything." It would be preferable, really. He didn't want to be lied to; he was concerned, with her, that he might not know whether she was lying to him or not.

"No, I do." She tucked her hair behind the ear not pressed against the pillow; her nervous habit, a signal of earnest determination, and it touched him—pierced him, really—made him hurt so sharply it took effort not to grit his teeth against it. "Part of me wishes that Irina hadn't—hadn't come here, hadn't said . . . what she said. That I didn't know. But it doesn't change anything."

He felt his body shut down, his eyes go empty and cool. He looked to the ceiling. "I wouldn't expect it would."

"That's not what I mean." She scooted closer—he could feel the heat from her skin. She reached out a hand, and hesitated. "I'm not good at this. I just—I just wanted to say that I . . . I care about you, and maybe—" Her fingers brushed his cheek, spasmed, then slid to cup the far side of his jaw. "What Mom said—I won't let it get in the way of that."

It was the first time she had touched him, instead of the other way around—the first overture toward intimacies other than sexual. The first motion of tenderness. He turned to look at her face, needing to see her, to understand the change, and her eyes were glassy with faint tears.

He put his hand over hers, and closed his eyes, breathed in. If he had been wise, he would have left it at that. Patience was his strongest suit, the thing at which he was skilled beyond his years. But the darkness, the late hour, Irina . . . it was too easy to speak.

"Sydney," he whispered, then paused to savor the shape the words would make on his tongue. "I love you."

She drew his hand to her mouth, pressed her lips to his palm. And then she crossed the last inches between them, laid her head on his shoulder, carefully laid her body against his.

And Julian Sark had to accept the fact—not for the first time—that he had been wrong, and Irina had been right.


	29. Part Twenty Nine

**Part Twenty-Nine**

ONE WEEK LATER

Vaughn watched the lights come on, one at a time, fast, as if they were nearly tripping over themselves in their hurry. In seconds, the space was illuminated—a yawning, industrial cavern, clinical but not cleanc dusty. There was a faint taste of iron in the air, as if the space itself had rusted. Lines of old storage shelving, empty, ranged across the far right end. The doors to the loading dock broken the even plane of the left wall, and next to it were a panel of buttons, red and brown and most of them cracked.

It looked so much like Elena's LA warehouse that Vaughn's insides clenched. Same emptiness. Same layout. Same feeling of tension, as if even the air was just barely keeping itself from letting out a shudder. It felt older than it looked, like consecrated ground—it felt like power, but not like goodness, not like God was supposed to feel.

"Wow," breathed Nadia, returning to stand beside him. He glanced at her. Dust from the fusebox was smeared across her slacks; he didn't think she'd even registered it. Her eyes were bright. "Do you feel that?"

"Yeah." But she didn't seem to be feeling the same "that" that he was—she was too awed, too breathless, the pleasure on her face too clean.

"It feels so . . . that energy! Do you think it was like this when she found it, or did she do something to make it this way?"

"Elena?" Of course she meant Elena; he was just . . . he didn't know what he was. "I don't know."

Nadia moved toward the left wall, and he followed because he felt stupid staying put. She went straight to the panel of buttons—not quickly, but unerringly. Her hand was hovering over the panel, palm first, when he reached her.

"I know this place," she said, looking at him. Her eyes were wide and vulnerable, swallowing up her face. She pushed the button under her hand, and three others. And part of the back wall slid open.

They were in what used to be the furthest edge of the Soviet Union, having found this location recorded cryptically in Bill Vaughn's files; he'd included it with information on Elena, and her ties with the KGB. It was one of four addresses, and this was the fourth address they'd tried; two had been demolished (one by an unexplained explosion), and the third hadn't yielded anything but dust. Fourth time, it appeared, was the charm—this place was a place Nadia knew but had not remembered, and the only way that was possible was if it were a place she'd been kept—held—as a child.

Vaughn had seen the videos, of course—he'd been with Sydney when she'd found them, and been as soul-deep horrified by the unknown girl, frail, detached, dwarfed and jerking helplessly in the chair. But the room, in person, was different. Cleaner than it looked in grainy black and white, even after years of disuse. Smaller, more claustrophobic.

Nadia looked pale now, almost white. He wanted to reach out to her, support her, let her lean on him—but they hadn't touched since the night he'd kissed her. It wasn't that things hadn't been friendly between them. If anything, Nadia had been more friendly, more open with him, and he didn't know why. Was it a mask, a way of concealing some other feeling? Or was she just relieved to have had the tension between them brought out in the open and then satisfactorily dismissed? He worried over it more than he should have, thought about that night more than he should have. He thought about the heat coming off her compact body, her surprisingly understated scent, and thought about what might have happened, if—

Well. Now he just wanted to jar her back to reality, to the now, because her eyes were so far away. But even as he watched she seemed to shake that off, to turn to steel, and something in him felt a familiar pang of grief. She didn't need him anymore than Sydney ever had. She started, "This was—"

And Vaughn said, "I know," to save her from having to say it. That much, at least, he could do.

She just nodded, and turned from him to look at the room. There was the chair, in the room's center, the way he remembered seeing it on film. But what hadn't appeared in the video frame was the workstation it faced. Antiquated glass jars sat, still in a tidy row, along the back edge. They were half-filled with medical supplies: gauze, q-tips, hypodermic needles. Plastic gloves. A nightmare version of the family doctor's office.

Nadia trailed her fingers along the top surface; the light coating of dust swirled and settled in their wake. She rubbed her fingertips together and he wondered what she felt. What she was thinking. Her face was smooth and empty now, almost clinical, like the workstation behind her.

"We'll need to clean it first," she murmured.

"Nadia?" he asked, unsure he'd heard her correctly.

"It needs to be cleaned," she said, turning back to him, "if we're going to use it."

What she meant dawned on him all of a sudden, obvious and horrific. "Nadia, we can't."

"We have everything we need. Everything she had back when she . . . ." She trailed off, and for a moment her face crumbled, lost its detachment. But only for a moment. "We could do it. Recreate the formula. See what it does."

"Nadia—"

She shook her head furiously. "No. I know what you're going to say, and it doesn't matter. I wanted to find Elena's work, to figure out my destiny, so I could stop it. But I need to know, Michael. I need to finish the work. Finish it, and then destroy it."

"It's too dangerous."

"It's too dangerous not to see it through!" She looked vulnerable all of a sudden, horrifically vulnerable, horrendously young. "I don't want to do it alone. Michael, please, help me. Help me, and that way you can make sure nothing goes—nothing goes wrong. Please."

He rubbed his face hard, trying to make his brain work, coming back again and again to the image of that little girl, her tears dark and wet on the straps that held her there. This wasn't right. And yet . . . .

"We can stop the prophecies from coming true," she urged. "Sydney won't be in danger anymore, not from me. Rambaldi says you're supposed to stop me—kill me, maybe—so help me instead. Help me stop it."

He could have argued more. He almost did. But he knew, in that instant, as he looked into her eyes, how it would end. He knew he'd say yes. Of course we would. Of course he'd help her. Because all of this, it was all his fault, he was the one to blame for bringing her back into this, for calling up the ghosts he saw now in her eyes.

And there was satisfaction, he realized with disgust, in the idea of bucking Rambaldi's prophecy—of saying "fuck you" to his supposed part in it . . . the part that had brought Lauren into his life, the part that had turned Bill Vaughn from his father into the head of an international intelligence organization as bad as any SD cell. Rambaldi hadn't ruined his life the way he had Nadia's, but he'd done enough, and Vaughn was holding one hell of a grudge. One that that took a sick, twisted pleasure in spitting in the man's face.

Nadia must have seen the resignation on his face, because hers relaxed, and she sighed the air out of her lungs. She tried to smile at him. He let her see his helplessness, his need: to make this stop, to make his life mean something more than pain. And he thought her breath might have caught.

"Michael," she said, "Michael—" And then she said the last thing he ever thought he'd hear her say: "Kiss me."

Time spluttered to a stop. His mouth went dry; his stomach bucked, hard, somewhere between nausea and desire. His head, already spun, spun further.

No. No. She couldn't mean—

"—here?" he choked out, only faintly aware that hadn't been the right response. But she was coming towards him, slipping buttons open on her shirt, chin lifted and eyes defiant and face flushed, and when her fingers closed on his shirt front and pulled him against her, he let it happen—he kissed her.

Her mouth was hot and lush and tasted dark, tasted like the antidote to a life of rules, of staying between the lines, but her skin was cool and clean at her throat, her collarbone, the rise of her breast above her bra.

_Sydney_, he thought, then, _No_, and pushed her out of his mind. Nadia deserved more than that. She deserved everything he could give her.

When she pulled him down, over her, his knees hitting hard ridged metal, he didn't resist—until he realized where they were, what she had pulled them down onto. The chair.

"Nadia," he started, pulling up, struggling, but her fingers but into his wrists.

"I don't care," she said, and kissed him again, open mouthed, pressed her lower body up and into him and he stopped fighting, stopped doing anything but feeling her, tasting her, smelling her. Her hands worked between them, releasing the last buttons; she shimmied out of her shirt as he lowered his mouth to the valley between her breasts. He released the clasp with one hand, pushed it off her shoulders after the shirt, and then her breasts were in his hands, cool and soft and heavy.

She gave a little gaspy breath, then a full-throated moan.

"The last man I took to bed," she said, breathless, eyes closed, "died because of me."

_Fuck_. It should have been a warning, but it sounded like a come on, the way her accent thickened with need.

"I'll take my chances," he told her, and kissed her throat.

"Good," she said, and cried out as he slid a hand between her thighs.

The cloth was heated and damp with sweat and arousal; he dragged his nails along either side of the pants seam as he closed his mouth over hers.

"Fuck me, Michael," she whispered against his mouth. "Michael, fuck, Michael—"

When she came, the sound echoed through the warehouse rafters. Later, hard and hot inside her, hands braced on either side of the hair's metal back, he swallowed his own groan of completion, keeping the sound a secret. His life, his body, his desire, however wrong—those things, at least, were still his own, and he would grant them where he wished.

Rambaldi be damned.

-

The light was different at dawn, cleaner. Just the time of day, Vaughn thought, but he felt good—clean—too. He wanted to stretch his muscled but didn't want to disturb Nadia, curled up against him. Her body had molded into the shape of his as they'd slept . . . or it could have been the other way around. It was nice. Sydney had always needed more space, had never been able to sleep so close to him.

When her eyes opened, he smiled, but she didn't return it. Her eyes were miles away.

"We need to get started."


	30. Part Thirty

**Part Thirty**

Vaughn's lower back ached, the muscles were taught between his shoulder blades. Back in school, he'd been more of a language arts guy. He'd liked literature. Learning new languages. He'd hated chemistry—too much like math. He was uneasy with problems that had inflexible answers. It was too much like real life.

And yet here he was: with formulas and rubber gloves, bent over beakers and test tubes. An eyedropper clenched awkwardly in his too-large hand. A pair of plastic safety glasses digging into the sides of his head, the elastic always slipping. He nudged them back into place with his forearm.

Nadia sat at the other workstation, face narrowed in concentration, her whole body perfectly still but for the hand that held the dropper. The goggles held her hair back from her face but failed to keep it from falling forward over her shoulders, thick and lank from infrequent washing. For the last week and a half they'd done nothing but work. Work, and make love, and get right back up to work. Vaughn was exhausted, emotionally haggard. But she was so driven, and it drove him too. Forced him to keep up. To keep working. To find the right formula, the right translation. To manufacture what was supposed to be a chemical link to Rambaldi's soul.

The liquid in Nadia's beaker clouded and flushed, as he watched, a bright supernatural green. She looked up at him, and smiled. "Got it."

-

"I miss her."

He opened his eyes, looked at the woman lying next to him. She was staring at the ceiling, eyes wide and faintly shiny with tears, pillow cradling her head the way he wished he could her heart. Her psyche. Her soul.

"Nadia, who?"

"Elena." She exhaled the word, as if ashamed to even give it sound. "I know now that she wasn't a good person. But I can't help grieving for her."

"When I was young, I couldn't have been more than eight, there was this man, a gardener, he liked . . . ." She had the most bitter smile he had ever seen. "He liked little girls. I remember, Sofia . . . Elena," she corrected herself, "Elena, she . . . took care of him, that's what she said, she said she had taken care of him so that he would never hurt us again. And he didn't. We never saw him again.

"I realize now, she must have killed him. It's easy to imagine, knowing . . . knowing what I know now. But I can't hate her for that. I can't make myself hate her at all. She was the only person that . . . that ever loved me. Before Sydney, I mean."

"She had you kidnapped."

"She had _you_ kidnap me," Nadia said, "and I'm here, with you, aren't I?"

It hurt him, but he knew it should, it was true. Slowly, he said, "You don't have to feel bad for having loved her."

She turned her face into his shoulder and it took him a moment to realize she was weeping, silently.

They didn't talk anymore.

-

Their first step had been to retrieve the device and the two disks from the safe deposit box where they'd stored them to hunt down Elena's properties. The second had been to insert the disks, turn the thing on, and decode the formula. It wasn't that easy, of course; it never was. But a little research, a few sleepless nights, and they had figured it out. The hardest ingredient to obtain was the disk residue, which they already had on hand. Once they got the formula to work, the last step was to use it—and see what happened.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Vaughn asked again, voice low.

"If I don't do it, someone else will do it to me." Nadia's eyes were closed.

_Someone else is doing it to you_, Vaughn thought. The needle was in his hands.

"If I'm in charge, I can control it." Something twitched, pulsed, in her jaw. "Doing this might save Sydney. Isn't that worth it to you?"

"Sydney's not who I'm worried about right now."

"Just do it, Michael. Please." Her eyes were still closed. So she wouldn't look at him, and change her mind? He didn't know.

God, what did he know? Not what he was doing. Not what would happen if he put the needle into Nadia's arm, and depressed the plunger. Unsurprisingly, Rambaldi's notes hadn't been particularly clear. The formula was supposed to allow Nadia to channel Rambaldi—to "embody" the prophet. How that happened, what that process entailed—and what it would do to Nadia—all that was a mystery. One he wasn't really that eager to figure out.

Allow Nadia to channel Rambaldi. _Allow_ seemed like the wrong word—except of course they were courting it, weren't they? This wasn't being forced on either of them.

They had a choice.

He could choose to put the needle down. He could choose to walk away.

But could he? Really? After everything he'd done, after everything he'd done to her?

He'd tried to talk her out of it. "We don't know what this will do to you," he'd said. "If we could just do some more tests first—"

"It's tailored specifically to my DNA," Nadia reminded him. "What or who do we have to test it on but me?"

They'd mixed samples of the fluid with samples of her blood, and it hadn't done anything so far as they could tell. The mixture produced heat, so they knew there was some sort of chemical reaction taking place, but it wasn't clear what that reaction was. And as Nadia pointed out, the formula most likely included some sort of nerve agent—the way her younger self had jerked in those videos suggested that much. The formula was designed to affect the spine, the brain stem, not the blood. They'd tested a small amount, as well, on him, injecting it into his veins—he'd insisted. If she was going to risk herself, the least he could do was the same. But nothing had happened. Maybe the chemical reaction in the blood—her blood only, they'd tried it on Vaughn's as well—was what set the nerve agent off.

And so they'd come to this moment: Nadia in the chair, wrists strapped down, legs secured, a cushion strapped to the chair behind her head in case. And Vaughn, needle in hand, at her side. No one's white knight.

He checked that the tourniquet was tight. Swabbed the skin above the vein with alcohol. Put the end of the needle to her skin. And pressed hard enough to slide it underneath.

Her hand clenched as he pushed the plunger down, body resisting. The liquid inside shimmered, bright green under the skin, at the entry point as her body absorbed it, as her blood swept it away into its flow. The plunger hit bottom. He pulled the needle out, capped it; unknotted the tourniquet. Dropped them both into the makeshift hazardous waste can at his feet. (What was more hazardous than something that might destroy the world?)

"Anything?" he asked, watching her closely. Part of him wanted nothing to happen. But he knew if it did, she'd just insist on trying again.

"Not—" Her voice broke on "yet," her eyes rolled back until he could only see white. And she started to seize.

-

_This woman here depicted will possess unseen marks. Signs that she will be the one to bring forth my works. Bind them with fury. A burning anger, unless prevented. At vulgar cost, this woman will render the greatest power unto utter desolation. This woman, without pretense, will have had her effect, never having seen the beauty of my sky behind Mt. Subasio. Perhaps a single glance would have quelled her fire._

The prophecies were in Italian. Fifteenth century Italian. So were the instructions for how to use the formula. The formula was older.

_The Chosen One and the Passenger shall battle, and neither shall survive._

-

He cradled her body in his arms as he stepped over the threshold into the makeshift bedchamber they'd put together in the warehouse, separate from the lab. She lay weakly, trembling slightly against him even unconscious. Her face was pale, skin clammy. She looked like death, and he clenched his jaw to keep from throwing up.

She'd seized for twenty minutes. He'd tried to hold her, keep her from hurting herself. She had bruises and abrasions on her arms and legs where they'd been secured (but not well enough) anyway, and blood on her lips; she'd bit her own tongue. Every muscle in her body would be sore.

It was six hours before she woke up.

"Next time," she murmured as she came awake, moistened her lips, and failed even to drag her eyelids open, "I need a pen."

Anger rose hot in him on the heels of his relief. "You can't be serious." _Next time_? She'd barely survived this time.

"Michael, it was glorious." She opened her eyes, and they were starry and far away. "I could see . . . I could see everything. It felt like the whole world had opened up to me. My God, if that was what it was like, to be him—"

"There's not going to be a next time," he gritted, and she blinked at him, her eyes clearing. "You could have died. I thought—"

"I'm alright, Michael," she said, gently.

"You had a seizure. You've been unconscious for six hours. You can barely lift your head! You're _not alright_."

"I feel fine." A smile drifted across her face. "I've never felt better."

"I can't go through that again." The anger was dying off, going as quick as it came, leaving him dried out and hollow inside, leaving him worn from fear. He sat next to her on the bed, put his head in his hands. Every part of him ached, as if he'd been the one stropped to the chair. He almost didn't hear her next, soft words.

"Then I'll do it myself."

-

He refused to help the next time. The next two times. He shut himself away in the warehouse offices, tried to ignore it, but he could still hear the rattle of the chair, the sound of her struggle as she thrashed. She'd strap herself down first, more thoroughly than they had the first time, all but her left arm, so she could administer the shot, and her right hand, so she could write. She fractured a bone in her left forearm the first time—but not so badly she couldn't depress the plunger. The second time, she broke the wrist. He set the bone, wrapped it. And went back to tying the tourniquet, and guiding the needle into her flesh.

-

Three nights later she started having the nightmares. He could never tell until the moment she woke: she broke the surface of sleep hard and fast, screaming, body cold.

The first time was near dawn; he was already awake, going over the Passenger prophecies again, comparing them to Nadia's seizure-induced scribblings and trying to understand what exactly they were creating, when he heard her cry out. He ran into the room, barefoot, gun drawn. She looked up at him from the bed, shivering, eyes wide and pupils dilated.

"What? Nadia, what is it?"

"I thought—It felt—" She pressed back her dark hair, damp at the hairline. She was pale. "A nightmare. It was a nightmare. I'm sorry. I must have scared you."

"A little." He holstered the gun. "Are you okay? Do you remember what you—what you dreamed?"

She shook her head. "No. Just—there was fire. And screaming."

Some of Rambaldi's journals mentioned dreams of hell—of fire.

He sat down on the bed beside her. "Do you need anything?"

"Yes," she said. "To work faster."

-

He thrust and her hips lifted under his. Again. Again. Again. Her arms over her head, hands gripping the headboard. His face buried in her neck, her breath shallow, quick, at his ear. Again. Again.

She seized, and cried out. He grit his teeth. His stomach turned, but he didn't stop. When she stilled beneath him, he pulled out, shifted, lay her head on his shoulder.

Drowsily, she murmured, "But you didn't . . . ."

He said, "Shh."

-

"It's not a crime to take a day off."

They were fighting again. They fought more than they did anything else lately—they were both tired, tightly strung, exhausted each in their own way.

"Would Elena have taken a day off?"

Her argument was crazy. Crazy, and also wrong. "I've read Dad's notes. She took days off."

"But would she now? Now that I'm full grown, no longer a child? No longer so small?"

He changed tactics, asserted, "The point of doing this yourself is so that you don't have to do what Elena would have done. You don't have to put yourself at risk."

"I'm already at risk, Michael. We're injecting a mystery compound into my veins." She held up her wrapped hand, at an angle she should have winced at, but her expression was perfectly even, eyes bright with anger. "My hand is broken. Every part of my body aches. I can't sleep without waking up screaming, and I'm losing time."

His blood ran cold. Panic. Fear. "You didn't tell me—"

"I want to get this over with!" As he watched, her face crumpled, her skin flushing, her eyes going wet and glassy. "This isn't something I want to do, it's something I have to do. And you aren't helping me by telling me I can stop. I need you here to _help me keep going_."

"I'm sorry," he said simply, and opened his arms. When he wrapped her up inside them she felt small, and fragile. Just a girl—just a woman. Aching flesh and bruised bone. A human being, one it was his work now to take care of. "I won't make it hard for you anymore. I never meant to do that."

"I know," she said. "I know."

When she lifted her face from his chest, her eyes were dry—almost as if he'd imagined her tears entirely. "Will you get the syringe ready?"

He slid his hands to her face, framing the strong cheekbones, the delicate jaw; he brushed her generous mouth with his thumb. She was so beautiful. Had she always been this beautiful? "I will."

She leaned up and kissed him, softly. She rubbed her hands along his arms, taking care not to let the gauze brush his skin. "I don't think I could do this without you, Michael. I mean that." She pressed her cheek against his chest, tucked under his chin. "I'm so glad you're here."

-

After a week and a half, he noticed the formula wasn't making her seize as badly as it had before.

"It's like any toxin," Nadia guessed. "You get used to it."

"It's not like a bee sting," Vaughn argued.

"Isn't it? Enough bee venom in your system, and the sting barely hurts anymore."

That's what he'd started to think of it as: Rambaldi venom.

Another week, and she wasn't seizing at all.

-

He woke up and Nadia wasn't in bed beside him. He sat up in the dark, and reached beside the bed to pull on a long-sleeved tee against the chill in the air as he waited for his eyes to adjust. He slid out from under the covers, cautious, listening.

He found her on the floor in main warehouse storage area, crouched in the thin white chemise and underwear she'd worn to sleep in. Her skin was rich and dark against their lack of color, her hair like night. There were papers spread around her. A pen discarded by her feet. She was shivering, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Nadia? Are all these from tonight?"

"Michael, I don't understand them. I did when I was writing them. I remember—" She picked up one page, then another, then another, crumpling them where she clutched them, and stared at them, blindly, threw them down. "I don't understand what I wrote anymore."

"Nadia, it's freezing out here."

She stared up at him, like an animal, like something untamed, haunted. "How is that possible? To know something one moment, and not the next?"

He wrapped his arms around himself to try to ward off the cold. She was picking up pages again, searching them with her eyes, discarding them. Almost manic. Feverish.

"You've just been awake too long," he said. "They'll make sense in the morning. You can try again then. Just come back to bed for now, okay?"

Once he got her into the bed, covers pulled up over her chest, she slept like a baby.

And he stayed up thinking for a long, long time.


	31. Part Thirty One

**Part Thirty-One**

Jack Bristow listened to his daughter's voice on the other end of the (secured) phone line. She sounded sincere, but Sydney had always been very good at sincere. How he and Irina had produced such a daughter . . . but then, Irina had always been very good at sincere as well. The difference was, Irina never truly was.

"I'm fine, Dad. Really. We're even starting to make some progress."

"On Nadia's endgame?"

"Not exactly. Not yet." He could hear her shifting—moving the phone to her other ear, glancing over her shoulder. At Sark? "Mom's collected a lot of information over the years. It's been a struggle just to get through her files."

"Your mother is nothing if not industrious." He didn't think he'd ever said anything more true.

Irina had made contact at the usual time: half-past eleven, on the second Thursday of the month. (It had not escaped him that he had proposed to her at 11:30 on a Thursday evening.) He let the phone ring twice before lifting the receiver and bringing it to his ear.

"Jack." Irina's voice was rich, resonant; not Laura's voice at all. Or not Laura's speaking voice. It was a voice that he associated with things he did not choose to think about now, or ever: the scent of his wife's body, the sounds of her pleasure. Irina's voice was all the carnal pleasures he and Laura had ever shared, all the intimacies they'd ever experienced, in one visceral, painful package.

"Irina." He cleared his throat; he knew it wasn't subtle. "I trust you're well."

"I am, thank you. So is our daughter."

His mouth thinned—both at the memory of his last conversation with Sydney (during which she had refused his insistence that she return home, in favor of remaining with Sark) and at Irina's choice to open their conversation with that reminder of their bond.

"I don't know if 'well' is the term I would use for Sydney's state of mind at present," he said after careful consideration of his response. "I take it you've seen her."

"Did you know Sark chose to house them in his own home while they worked?"

"Sydney mentioned."

"Mmm. She seemed comfortable there."

"Oh?"

"Jack." Irina clucked her tongue. "Don't tell me you hadn't noticed."

"If I had," he said tightly, "it wouldn't be any of my business."

By which he meant there was nothing he could figure to do. Of course he had noticed: the way Sark had looked at her, the way she hadn't appeared to mind. Her refusal to come back to Los Angeles could only mean their . . . working relationship . . . had progressed. He wasn't _happy_ about it, but there were some things about Sydney's life with which he could not interfere, or else risk damaging irreparably the always-uncertain bond they had painstakingly forged.

Naturally that lack of interference did not extend to his calling in favors in order to keep a close watch on Sark's actions, bank accounts, and less savory contacts. That was merely a father's prerogative.

Irina, however, sounded pleased—nearly smug—with the development. "She and Sark seem to make a good team. Like us."

He had to wait a moment to let his temper flare and settle. "I don't want my daughter to be a team," he pronounced the word with distaste, "with one of your trained assassins." He didn't want his daughter to end up like him.

"He's not mine anymore, Jack. In fact, he was quite put out at having me there." She hesitated before saying the rest: "They both were."

It was rare to hear regret—manufactured or not—in Irina's voice; it was a sentiment that she typically abjured. But he heard it there now. He wondered what possible end she expected to achieve by expressing it until a thought occurred to him: What if Irina were simply looking for comfort? The idea disturbed him; it was a struggle to conceive of it, given Irina Derevko's ruthless manipulations and easy, emotionless betrayals, but he supposed even Irina had feelings, which could be hurt. Given the right circumstances.

Still bemused, he responded, "Perhaps you ought to try calling ahead next time."

Irina laughed, a rich, amber sound, and part of him felt traitorously satisfied. He'd apparently cheered her up. "I do love you, Jack."

After a long pause, he'd muttered, sounding pained even to his own ears, "I love you too."

And they'd hung up. Irina hadn't even bothered to mention the reason she'd visited them: to give Sydney her Rambaldi research. Sydney was the one who'd told him, when she'd replied to his voice mail message about Eric Weiss's funeral. He would have flown to meet her and Sark immediately had he not been needed where he was; with Sydney away, Nadia and Vaughn gone, and Weiss dead, APO was down more agents than it could spare. And as Nadia and Vaughn posed no immediate threat that they could ascertain, there were other more urgent intelligence crises to be dealt with. But the situation disturbed him. He had worked very hard to keep Sydney away from Rambaldi's work since he'd had the authority to do so, and here she was right back in the center of it.

He had been sure to call regularly, to offer what information he had and to gage Sydney's status. Irina had been correct—she seemed comfortable, even happy. Still, he had to check.

"Listen," Sydney said in his ear, "I'm glad you called, but I ought to go. Sark's in there working without me."

"I understand." He didn't, of course—he thought any guilt regarding Sark was misplaced—but it wasn't worth bringing up in this particular conversation. "Take care of yourself, sweetheart."

"I will, Dad. I love you."

A ghost of a smile tugged at his compressed lips. This response, at least, was easy. "I love you too, Sydney."

-

Sydney woke up at seven with Sark's arm draped over her body, and his forehead resting between her shoulder blades, hair brushing lightly against her skin. The covers had slid down during the night (probably Sark's doing. He'd told her he disliked sleeping under them when he was alone, because throwing them off required extra seconds should he be attacked while sleeping; Sydney thought the comfort, the feeling of elemental security in snuggling under layers of blankets, was worth the risk), and the air on her bare skin contrasted the warmth of his body. Not heat—Danny had put out heat like a furnace when he slept. Sark's warmth was more contained, quieter. Stealthier.

She spent a few minutes just lying there, on her side, listening to Sark's even breathing—he was awake, she knew, but if she acknowledged that they'd both have to get up and stop pretending. Almost three weeks after Irina's visit, they'd only just begun to scratch the surface of the data she'd collected over thirty years of work. There was so much more to do; she just wanted to put it off, this morning, awhile longer.

What had driven her before—Nadia being in danger—no longer applied, not the same way it had before. (Nadia had made her choice, and Sydney still had the tender spot on her skull as a reminder.) She was used to having to race against the clock—48 hours, 72 hours, get to the prize before the other guy does. This waiting, this endless puzzling over data, wasn't what she was trained for. It wasn't what she was built for.

Sark was more patient. He woke with purpose every morning, was relentless in teasing out meanings, in putting things together piece by piece, unlocking connections she could only grasp at. But of course he also knew her mother's mind, certainly better than Sydney did.

They knew that Nadia and Vaughn had William Vaughn's files—William Vaughn, who was, or rather had been, alive—and they knew Rambaldi's prophecies suggested that Nadia would take up Elena's work. ("Prophecy isn't fact," Sydney had protested. "No," Sark agreed. "Then why are we treating it like it is?" "We're treating it as a possibility, Sydney. Just because it isn't fact doesn't mean its necessarily untrue.") They knew that Elena had once expended large amounts of energy and resources to strap Nadia in a chair and inject her with a cocktail of chemicals that included, among other things, residue from the disk Sydney had retrieved the year before—but not what the purpose of those injections were.

They knew, in other words, approximately nothing.

Sydney spend a lot of time thinking, when she couldn't manage to avoid it—about Weiss, whose funeral (her father had told her in a stiff, clipped voicemail message) had finally taken place the Tuesday before; about Nadia, and the little girl Elena had exploited; about Vaughn, who Sydney was still too angry at, too hurt by, to feel bad for, but who she knew well enough to know would be thrown, hideously, by learning his father had been alive, all this time. She did wonder if finding out about his father's most recent death—or causing it; how did Sydney know he hadn't? She'd misjudged him so many times already—had made it easier. She'd often thought not having Irina around to remind her (that her mother's death had been fake, that Sydney's grief had been unnecessary) would be easier. She wondered if having William Vaughn dead (again) made it feel as if the world had been put right.

It was hard not to think of these things, spending her days steeped in Irina's notes, in Rambaldi myth and lore. A lot of Irina's files were devoted to Rambaldi's various devices—every one Sydney had ever retrieved or found a piece of, and more that she had not. The notes were extensive: what each one did, how it worked, what it was made of, how one might stop or destroy it, all down to the smallest detail, all carefully catalogued.

The same was true of Rambaldi's prophecies. Irina had collected different versions, slight variations in wording, translations in dozens of languages, maybe more. Some were marked "confirmed," others "possible" or "unlikely." Among the confirmed (confirmed by who?) prophecies were the Page 42 prophecy and the Chosen One/Passenger prophecy—the ones with which she was familiar. But they weren't alone—there was also one about a man who was supposed to be able to stop the Passenger.

One that showed up in several versions among the possibles was about a helpmate for the Chosen One, which apparently hadn't been a surprise to Sark.

"Occasionally, your mother liked to believe those applied to me," he supplied without shifting his gaze from the screen in front of him.

"Occasionally?" Sydney asked as she waited for that idea to settle in, and decide whether Irina's—occasional—belief that Sark was destined to be Chosen One Sydney's partner made Irina walking in on her and Sark in the pool a little amusing or just that much more irritating.

"Irina prefers to cover all her bases," he said, and it was, as usual, impossible to tell what he thought about that. "I was a possibility. However, so was Michael Vaughn . . . and so were others. Occasionally she believed I was the most likely candidate, but she was too much a realist to assume it. All this presuming the prophecy was even authentic."

That was another thing Sark was better with than she was: prophecy. How it worked, the way people responded to it, accepting the possibility that it could be real. He was at home with it in a way she was not—even took it seriously. She just . . . couldn't. Not fully. Not even now. Which was why the idea of a man who _might_ have been Sark, _maybe_ being prophesized as the partner of the Chosen One, who _could_ be her, didn't make much of an impact. It wasn't any more insane than any of the other Rambaldi prophecies—and far _less_ insane than what this thing between she and Sark had become.

Which was something . . . good. Something that made the tediousness of the work bearable, that buffered her against the grief and betrayal that otherwise would have pulled her under. It wasn't easy, or sure, but there were moments. A lot of moments. She'd been living in Sark's home—living with Sark—for more than a month and a half. They'd fallen into routines, comfortable ones, the kinds she'd never gotten to have with Vaughn (a small blessing, now, she reflected; one less thing to regret).

Doing so had required a certain suspension of disbelief—required forgetting the circumstances, pretending something other than conflict and pain had brought them together, and compartmentalizing their past—but it had been, to her mind, worth the struggle to do so. She could only take so much pain. Whatever this thing with Sark was—it wasn't pain.

Sark stirred behind her, his arm shifting to encircle her waist, help fit himself against her. "Good morning," he murmured in her ear, and laved the spot beneath it that always made her shiver and heat.

He nuzzled her neck and then let out a content-sounding exhale, still just holding her, making no move to do anything more. He could be so . . . soft . . . in the morning, she'd discovered. It was one of the things she'd come to treasure the most, seeing him like that. She'd expected to have trouble reconciling it with the rest of him, his cold exterior, the measured way he approached his work. But she hadn't. It was just another part of him.

She shifted in his arms to face him, and smiled at his tussled hair, the pillowcase marks creased into his cheek. So very human. There'd been so much change in him, since the night Irina had shown up and exposed that Sark loved her. He laughed so much more now; he seemed less . . . _careful_, was the best word she could think of to describe it. She wondered what changes he saw in her.

"You're happy this morning," she teased. She lifted a hand to touch his hair, and he caught it, turned it, kissed her palm.

"I was having this remarkable dream. CIA agent Sydney Bristow was sharing my bed."

She smiled. "Really? That doesn't sound like her at all."

"I think you underestimate her. As well as my powers of seduction." He licked delicately at the skin at her wrist, and she felt an answering lick of lazy desire down low. She definitely didn't underestimate his powers of seduction.

"You leave for Morocco today." He pressed kisses slowly up the inside of her arm, each placement of his lips considered, intent, though his eyes never left hers.

Her voice was breathier than she meant it to be when she confirmed, "Yes."

His smile was nearly secreted against her skin. "How will you survive without me?"

"You know, I used to go on missions without you all the time. At least this time I won't have to worry running into you in the field."

"I could come along, prevent you from keeping your rendezvous—for old times' sake." The look in his eye was wicked.

"You could try," she volleyed back, and let out a shriek as he yanked her on top of him. She laughed, pinned his wrists, and kissed him, savoring the heat of his skin bare against hers.

Yes, pretending—that there wasn't work to be done, that this thing between them could last—was much better. And she was willing to do so as long as she could.


	32. Part Thirty Two

**Part Thirty-Two**

It wasn't Sydney Bristow's first time in Morocco. She'd spied among the souks of Marrakech, done reconnaissance above the blue and white walls of Chefchouen. She'd even looked for Rambaldi artifacts in other parts of the Sahara.

It was, however, Sydney Bristow's first time on a camel.

She squinted through her sunglasses, insufficient to fully block the glare from the sand, and prayed they'd reach their destination soon. She'd been at this nearly two hours, gripping tightly to the camel's sides to try and mitigate the jarring from the camel's erratic gate, sweating in the afternoon desert sun and pretending she couldn't understand her guide's Arabic as he chattered into his cell phone, even as he led her (or her camel) to some distant point she was unable to ascertain.

"Excuse me!" she called out. English. Like a good little American tourist. "Excuse me, but are we almost there?" As if the indignity of having a humped spine jostling between her legs weren't enough, she was pretty sure she was getting bruised. Badly. In places no one should have to explain. Sark was going to laugh.

"What?" the man paused in his cell phone conversation to call back.

"Are we almost there? To the camp?"

"Soon, yes. Just past the dunes."

She didn't bother to ask which dunes; there was no way to distinguish between them, really, with her untrained eye.

Back at home, Sark was probably drinking wine. Working, sure: checking on the feelers he had put out in the preceding week (the newspaper ad he'd placed to try to contact Lauren Reed, the requests for information on Vaughn and Nadia's whereabouts he'd called in to his best sources), not to mention continuing to wade through Irina's more cryptic files. And yes, given Sark's break with Irina nearly a year earlier, it made more sense for Sydney to be the one to meet her mother's contact. But she wished she could switch places with him. Send him out on a two hour camel ride into the Sahara. This hadn't been what she'd had in mind when she'd hoped for some action, some time in the field, to break up the monotony of analyst work.

Twenty minutes later, her guide announced they had arrived. He directed the camel to its knees and stepped on one of its front legs to hold the animal there while Sydney slid off, unsteady, onto the sand.

A hundred feet in front of them was a semi circle of rough fabric-draped enclosures. The one in the center was the largest. "Come," her guide said once the camel was tied to a post. "Abdullah is there. You will have tea."

Abdullah, her mother's contact, was a large man, beefy, tall, with a craggy, cheerfully grizzled face. He wore a scarf wrapped turban-style around his head and a long, thin robe. He looked comfortable and cool sitting cross-legged in front of a low, wide table, whereas she felt hot and sore, and had sweated through her clothes. The location was usually a place for tourists to experience the desert—that was his work now, tourists—but he'd arranged for that night's guests to be housed elsewhere, to let them meet.

"Ms. Bristow!" he greeted her once he had dismissed her guide. "It's a pleasure. Sit, please."

She lowered herself gingerly to the ground, wishing for a pillow as she rested her weight on the hard-packed ground, and accepted the small glass of hot sweet mint tea he handed her. She mimed taking a sip—she was dry-mouthed, but there was no use being stupid as well as sore—and summoned up a smile. "Thank you for meeting with me."

"How could I not?" He poured himself a glass of tea from the same pot. "The curiosity alone!"

"Curiosity?" Sydney asked. She waited until he'd sipped the tea, watched for his swallow, then finally, gratefully, swallowed some of her own. It scalded sweetly going down.

"Rumor has it Irina passed her work on to you. Is it true?"

How did these things get around so fast? she wondered. It had only been a few weeks. And she and Sark, they'd been careful. But of course, neither of them controlled Irina.

"Define 'her work.'"

"Rambaldi."

"Then yes."

Sydney sipped her tea again calmly. Inside her mind was racing. Who else knew? Did even Nadia and Vaughn, by now?

She waited, without sound, without expression, until finally Abdullah sat back, shook his head. "And what service can I do you today, Ms. Bristow?"

"I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me, about Rambaldi."

She barely caught the extra bit of tension around his eyes. He asked, warily, "What can I tell you that Irina Derevko doesn't already know?"

"Her notes say you're the living expert on Rambaldi's early life—who he was before he . . . ." She fumbled unexpectedly for the words she was looking for.

"Became Rambaldi?" Abdullah inquired dryly. "Most people are uninterested in that time of Milo Rambaldi's life."

"My mother included," Sydney agreed. "But I'm not most people." Although technically it had been Sark who'd picked up on the gap in information, and wondered what it might tell them that the notes they had did not.

He held up his hands, conceding to her, and she noted he was fully relaxed once more. She wondered what he'd feared she would ask. "I will tell you what I know, though I doubt it will be useful to you."

She smiled, cajoling. "Let me be the judge of that."

He shook his head, laughed. "You are your mother's daughter." As always when the remark had to do with her mother, Sydney was unsure whether or not to take it as a compliment. "All right, Ms. Bristow. Listen, and I will tell you of the Rambaldi you do not know. . . ."

Abdullah, Sydney learned, had been a professor in the Soviet Union thirty years ago, employed by the KGB for his specialty in Italian and his facility with unorthodox research methodology. This was how Irina had known of him, though they had not crossed paths until many years later, after Irina had struck out on her own and he had retired to Africa.

"The KGB was puzzled by my research, and the end deemed it curious but irrelevant, which was the only reason I believe I was allowed to keep my life, much less leave the country to return here," he explained.

What he had found boiled down to this: the fifteenth century scientist and inventor Milo Rambaldi's life could be divided in two by a period of three years during which he sequestered himself in his home and was seen by no one. After that time, he was the man Sydney was familiar with—the genius, the prophet. Before that, he was something else—he was, by all accounts Abdullah uncovered, unremarkable. His attempts at inventions were failures, and he lived primarily off the last of his family's once-great fortune, in near poverty. For two years prior to those missing years, he fancied himself a scholar, and spent quite a bit of time at a nearby monastery, reading old scrolls. When he stopped visiting, the monks discovered there was a scroll missing, but as they hadn't recorded the nature of its contents, what it held remained a mystery.

"I assume that whatever he discovered through his studies of that scroll—if indeed he was the one who took it—was the catalyst for the change others described in him, and his metamorphosis into the man we know of as Rambaldi." Abdullah held out his hands in a gesture of uncertainty. "That was all I was able to find."

"The KGB didn't find those circumstances suspicious?" Sydney asked.

"Of course they did. But their suspicion never led to anything conclusive, no matter how many other researchers they employed to check my work. So they simply chose to ignore it."

Sydney thanked him for his help, and (barely managing to conceal her wince as she stood) asked where she could find her guide. She wasn't looking forward to the ride back; her tailbone and the insides of her thighs already felt bruised, they hurt whenever she moved, and she saw out the heavy flaps of the tent that the sun was low on the horizon. It would be a cold ride, without the sun's heat reflecting off the dunes.

"He'll return soon, he went to fetch your ride back."

She furrowed her brow in puzzlement. "Is there something wrong with the camel I came on?" Other than the fact the whole breed was clearly not intended for riding.

"Oh no, your camel is fine." There was a wicked gleam in Abdullah's eye. "I only thought you might prefer to return to M'Hamid as the Berbers do."

"How's that?" Sydney inquired, suspicion very much like nausea beginning in the pit of her stomach.

"By Jeep."

-

Sydney unlocked and pushed open the front door of Sark's home at half-past one a.m., more exhausted than she'd been in a long time, sore, miserable. Sweat from earlier in the day had dried everywhere on her body, and there was sand in her hair. And she knew from the reflection she'd seen in the darkened car window before she'd dismissed Sark's driver that she looked as bad as she felt.

She dropped her bag and headscarf at the foot of the stairs, trudged down the hallway, and turned the corner into the kitchen—and Michael Vaughn.

Sark sat across from him at the kitchen table, hands folded and steady, eyes on her.

"Sydney," he said, "you're home early."


	33. Part Thirty Three

**Part Thirty-Three**

Whatever had happened in M'Hamid had left her raw, Sark saw on her face.

Her body had gone stiff the moment she'd walked through the door and seen the man with whom he was sitting. There'd been no question of that—but he'd hoped to catch her before she'd seen him, to explain, so at the least she wouldn't be caught off guard and no doubt feel as if she'd been ambushed. If Michael Vaughn would not have been there to see it, he might even have grimaced.

"Sydney, you're home early," he supplied—a gesture at an apology.

Her eyes sharpened on him, as if Vaughn were not there—gratifying, but also worrying, as the look in those eyes was not charitable. "Sark, may I see you in the hallway?"

"Of course," he said, taking care to rise smoothly. "Mr. Vaughn, if you'll excuse us."

Vaughn, who'd been staring helplessly at Sydney since she'd entered, shifted that gaze to look incredulously at Sark. Smiling slightly to himself—there was no reason for him not to enjoy the other man's discomfort—Sark gestured for Sydney to precede him out of the kitchen; she turned on her heel and did so.

"I don't even know where to start," she hissed once he'd closed the door behind them.

"I missed you, too," he couldn't help returning.

"What the hell is Vaughn doing here?" She nearly quivered with her anger, but he could see the exhaustion she hid beneath it, the edge of tears.

So he spoke low and quickly, in an attempt to diffuse the anger and to distract her from the tears. "Sydney, he contacted me claiming he wanted to help us stop Nadia. I didn't want to trouble you unless I knew he was sincere."

When she just closed her eyes, he dared to reach for her hand. She gripped his tightly. "It just surprised me, seeing him here."

"I know, love." He brought her hand to his lips, and kissed it gently.

She opened her eyes, and narrowed them at him. "But I'm still angry with you."

He nodded cautiously. "Fair enough."

She took a deep breath. "You go ahead back in. I could use a minute."

"I don't mind keeping him waiting." He'd expected more shouting, to be honest. Been prepared for it. It was unnerving to have had the situation resolved so quickly—this part of it, at least. Was this just the proverbial quiet before the storm?

"I'm just going to go splash some water on my face. Really. I won't take long." She gave him a weak but encouraging smile.

He studied her another moment, then decided to take her at her word, and nodded.

"Where's Sydney?" Vaughn asked when Sark reentered the kitchen alone. His tone was aggressive.

Sark reseated himself at the table, irritable at Vaughn's presumption. "She's no longer yours to defend, Mr. Vaughn. Do attempt to remember that, or else I expect this partnership you've proposed will get very tedious, very quickly."

Vaughn looked quite pained, Sark was reminded, when he was forced to bite back a retort. Sark exhaled, and forced himself to let it go as well.

Their interaction had actually been quite civil up until that point. Michael Vaughn's message had been unexpected, to say the least, and Sark's curiosity had given him reason to keep his less charitable thoughts to himself; presumably Vaughn's desire to obtain his and Sydney's assistance, a desire that Sark now believed to be sincere, was what kept him in check. Sydney's arrival, however, appeared to have changed that. Not surprising, of course. What worried Sark was how _Sydney's_ behavior might change—in particular, towards him. It was the reason, curiosity aside, he had almost decided not to respond—nearly had not met up with Mr. Vaughn at all.

"She's just freshening up, she'll join us shortly," Sark made himself say, tone neutral, and Vaughn gave a tense, awkward nod.

There didn't seem to be any point in talking until Sydney returned, and so they sat there, silent—Michael Vaughn too mired in his own self-loathing to be tense and Sark unwilling to appear uncomfortable in his own home, something any attempt at small talk would indicate—until Sydney came through the doorway, showing exhaustion in the circles beneath her eyes but more composed, her hair tight against her head in its ponytail, her face clean though pale. Sark stood to offer her his chair, but she shook her head and took one that put her between them, her back to the door—trusting him to watch it.

Sydney folded her hands carefully on the table, then looked at Vaughn. "Talk."

Vaughn stared down at the tabletop, no doubt seeing the misery in his expression reflected there. His voice was low, and hoarse, when he spoke. "I need help."

Sark watched the emotions war across the battlefield of Sydney's face: anger, pity; unwanted, unearned compassion. But when she spoke, her voice was devoid of all of it: "Where's Nadia?"

"Russia. She's in Russia." A grimace, as if he were in physical pain, broke the haggard lines of Vaughn's face. "Sydney—"

She cut him off. "No." She still sounded calm. Distant. "Just say what you came here to tell us."

Vaughn's jaw tightened. Swallowing his meager protestations, his laughable attempt at connection with the woman he'd betrayed? "I'm worried about Nadia. She isn't herself anymore; she's obsessed with . . . . Sydney, she—_we_ recreated the formula Elena used on her when she was a child. I—"

For a moment Sark thought Vaughn might actually be sick; his face blanched and his throat appeared to spasm.

"I injected her with it. And it did something to her. I came here because I didn't know what else to do. Something's happened to her. Happening to her. She's getting worse."

He'd been watching Vaughn, not Sydney, and so the force of Sydney's response startled even him, well-acquaintanced as he was with the sharp rise of her temper.

"And you just left her there?" she demanded. She was nearly trembling with the effort of holding herself back; her face was bright with anger, flushed, eyes nearly glassy. "After you kidnapped her, and injected her with that . . ." Her fury seemed to come over her again in a wave, choking her.

"I'm trying to make it right!" Vaughn exploded. "Don't you think I know this whole thing is my fault? Don't you think that every day—" He was pleading with her, and roaring at her, both at once. "If I'd just come to you . . . to Jack . . . in the beginning, none of this . . . . If I'd talked to you—Sydney, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry."

And Michael Vaughn broke down, and cried.

Well. Sark sat back in his chair, nonplussed. It was the same story Vaughn had told him earlier that day, plus or minus a detail here or there, but for Vaughn to have lost control like that. . . . If Sark hadn't believed him before, he would have been inclined to now.

Slowly, Sydney stood up from the table, and looked at Sark, eyes shuttered, cold. "I'm going to bed." She didn't look at Vaughn at all.

Sark nodded, "Alright," cautious of her mood. Had it been only the two of them he might have tried to draw her out: with words, with touch, with insults if necessary. But they weren't alone, and so he let her go. Sleep would likely do her more good than he could in her current state, anyway.

And besides, he had a guest.

"Mr. Vaughn," Sark said neutrally, looking politely to the man's right shoulder rather than at his face—it was easy to be the bigger person, Sark was learning, when one had in one's possession what one's adversary wished for himself, "a bed has been made up for your use in one of the guest rooms. I'll show you to it."

-

"Hit me."

Sydney saw Sark's eyebrows rise. "I'm sorry?"

She'd been waiting for him. She'd tried to fall asleep but she couldn't. She was too jittery, still exhausted but tense, all of her tense, too much inside her. Too much pent up, blocked up. Anger she couldn't safely or effectively channel and release, and that was only the simplest of it. It sat there inside her, crying out, turning hard and cold and more frightening for it. She wanted it hot.

"Hit me." Frustration shimmered over her skin like a chill; he was still staring at her incredulously.

"Really, don't you think you ought to—"

She swung at his head and his arm came up, automatically, to block her. The impact was gratifying but it wasn't enough.

"Damn it, Sark, just _hit me_."

She threw a right cross, and he used her momentum to pull her, twist her around, trap both her arms behind her and bring her back flush against the front of his body. His mouth pressed against her ear, his cheek against her hair. His breath was hot but his words were patient. "I'm not fighting you, Sydney."

The back of her head made contact with his cheekbone, and he cursed and let her go.

"I need to fight someone," she said as he glare at her. "Please."

"Why not wake Mr. Vaughn, then?" He touched his cheek gingerly with the fingers of one hand.

_Vaughn_. Her stomach clenched and rolled. To avoid it, she lunged, and Sark twisted, driving his elbow into her side.

"I know you won't let me hurt you." She ducked his punch, then skittered back to regroup, chest heaving now from the exertion. "He would."

"I'm not invulnerable, Sydney."

They circled each other, and the intensity of his focus was electrifying. Every part of her sang.

"I trust you to stop me."

His blow connected with her jaw, and pain and satisfaction lanced through her. She moved but not fast enough; his fist connected again.

"Still trust me?" he snarled, low, almost feral, dangerous. His breath was coming fast now too. He grabbed her by the arms, yanked her toward him, close to the animal staring out of the man's eyes.

She kneed him in the groin. "Yes."

And she did. In ways she'd never have expected.

They fought: blocking, parrying, landing blows between feints. Sparring, but sparring hard, full out, breaths sawing in the silence.

She stumbled once, and Sark asked, taunting, "Feel better yet?"

"Some," she retorted. "Why? Tired?"

"Hardly."

When he hit her with enough force that she fell, hard, knocking the breath from her lungs, it surprised them both. Sydney used his hesitation to kick at his knee, bring him down too. Neither of them bothered to get back up.

And after a few exhausted seconds, Sydney finally started to cry. The tears were quick and silent, streaming down the curve of each cheek and mixing with the sweat that already dampened her hair. Her breath came back to her with a hiccupping sob, and she closed her eyes as Sark pulled her against his body, holding her, again, while she let go of as much rage, as much fear, as much grief as she could.


	34. Part Thirty Four

**Part Thirty-Four**

Watching them together was hell.

Michael Vaughn cared about Nadia—deeply, with a fierceness that still surprised him—but he didn't delude himself into believing that meant he wasn't still in love with Sydney Bristow. And watching her and Sark together . . . . No matter how little right he had to his jealousy, his anger, he still felt it. And it burned.

They didn't rub it in. That didn't surprise him—or it didn't surprise him from Sydney. They were careful not to touch, careful to be professional. It didn't matter. Their connection was a living thing in any room they both were in: the unconscious ease of their interaction, the way they looked to each other before either looked at him. He was external to their world, an uncomfortable necessity. And he couldn't say a thing—he had no right to (Sark had said it, scornfully, the way Sark said everything, but he hadn't been wrong). So he gritted his teeth and suffered in silence, understanding acutely that he deserved every moment of it and then some.

That morning Sydney had come downstairs looking worn but infinitely calmer than she had the night before and, ignoring his burning assumptions as to how Sark might have helped her attain that peace, he walked them through Nadia's . . . change. The clinical details couldn't capture his helplessness, his horror, the texture of his fear for and wariness of her. He could describe the changes in her—the manic flashes of genius, the shadows in her eyes—but that didn't capture what it felt to see her flash from one extreme to the other. He couldn't look at Sydney while he told the story—couldn't watch her face as it became more and more horrified—so he looked instead at Sark. Sark, whose face was comfortingly devoid of expression. Same old Sark. Except how could he be, if Sydney—

He focused on making sure he told them everything he could remember, down to the last detail. He had nothing to gain from holding anything back. What could revealing his and Nadia's new relationship hurt at this point? He'd already lost everything. So he'd laid out every shameful thing he'd done those last few weeks, and every half-decent thing too, even when his voice shook, even when the content of his memories disgusted even himself. And when he was done, when he'd forced out the last of it, his voice hoarse, Sark rose and said, impassive as ever, "I believe we could use a pot of tea."

Which left Vaughn alone with Sydney.

He forced his mouth into what felt like a mockery of a smile; it felt stupid, not polite like he'd intended. And Sydney's expression went from uncomfortable to speculative.

"Vaughn," she said, voice careful, "did you—do you love her? Nadia?"

_Would it hurt you if I did?_ he wondered, the pain in his own chest nearly breaking him.

Part of him had thought he'd never actually see Sydney again, that he'd never have to explain himself to her, no matter how many times he'd rehearsed doing just that in his head. Now here he was sitting across the table from her—across Sark's table from her. And she was further away than ever. The hum he was used to feeling between them was gone, completely missing, and that absence overwhelmed him. Sitting next to her like this, without it, it was like she was an entirely different person. Or he was.

"No, don't answer that." She closed her eyes, put her hand to her forehead as if she had an ache there, between her brows. "I'm just trying to understand. I know you're not a . . . a bad person. Listening to you talk—I can tell you care about her."

Except he was a bad person. It was so much easier to see now, looking back—how he'd let himself make the wrong choices, how he'd chosen the path he was on. Had been on, he hoped. But had coming here been the right thing, the good thing, to do? He didn't trust himself anymore to know.

He had to make her understand that.

"Sydney, I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't picked up that newspaper and seen Sark's ad."

Surprise broke over her face, and lifted her brows. "That's how you found us? The ad Sark placed for Lauren?"

It was such a minor thing, compared to everything he'd just revealed, but the shame of it stung, if anything, even more. "I broke into the encrypted files on her laptop," he confessed softly, forcing himself to look her in the eye. "Last year, when you and she—when she went back to the Covenant last year, she left her computer. All I did those weeks I spent recovering was learn everything I could about her. That's how I recognized Sark's contact protocol." It was also how he had stumbled on Elena. "I was obsessed. I hated her so much. And I just wanted to understand—how she could do something like that, how she could pretend to love me and then—"

Sydney waited, lips pressed into a thin line.

"What I'm trying to say is you shouldn't try to understand. I've done . . . I've done horrible things. Made unforgiveable choices. It doesn't matter why I made them. Knowing why doesn't help. Stop—"

_Stop trying to forgive me._

Because she shouldn't. She shouldn't even want to. But he knew, in that moment, the two of them sitting there at that table, that she could. Because Sydney's capacity for forgiveness, the force of her yearning to grant it, was as limitless as her need for justice. But as much as he wanted it, he didn't deserve it. Not her forgiveness, and not her love.

He didn't deserve it. _And__ neither did Sark._

"Stop what?" Her voice jolted him harshly back.

"Nevermind," he muttered.

She was staring at him, something like disbelief on her face, and he felt anger begin to simmer again beneath the shame and self-loathing. Anger at her, at Sydney, for not kicking him out the moment she saw him at Sark's kitchen table (nevermind whose house it was), for that impulse in her that let her go from refusing to go to Sark for help to sleeping in his bed—to looking like she _belonged_ there, with him, in his house and in his kitchen.

Her voice was low and tight when she spoke. "Let's get one thing straight: I don't care about your guilt. I don't care about your need to be punished, or your . . . your martyr complex, or whatever that self-pitying crap just was. _I can't work next to you feeling like this_. And you don't get to say what I can and cannot do about that."

"I didn't mean to tell you what to do."

She jerked her head and her hair swung angrily as she laughed. "Right."

"Look, this isn't easy for me!"

"It isn't supposed to be! You did this. You did this to Nadia, to us. And I'm not trying to make this hard for you, but I'm damn well not going to make it harder for me just to make it easier for you."

Her words brought him up short, his retort abandoning him entirely. He'd been assuming she was doing what she always did: taking care of other people instead of herself, denying her own feelings for the sake of others'. Letting him hurt her. Knowing it was the opposite . . . made it easier, even if it wasn't supposed to. Because he was so tired of hurting her, beyond tired. Like with a cut where the blood wouldn't clot, no matter what he did, how much pressure he applied, he couldn't stop the hurt from hemorrhaging.

He expelled his breath, forced his clenched hands to relax. "Okay."

She blinked, as if she'd been expecting more of a fight. He didn't blame her. "Okay," she agreed, then looked back over her shoulder as Sark came through the door—impeccable timing; of course he'd have been listening at the door—with the pot of tea. "Then let's get to work."

-

"None of this looks familiar."

Michael Vaughn sounded frustrated, and Sark couldn't blame him, under the circumstances. They'd been at this for more hours than he cared to recall, Sydney talking Vaughn through the intel they'd gleaned from Irina's files and Vaughn running his hand through his hair, deepening the wrinkles in his brow, and shaking his head no. No, the name didn't look or sound familiar; no, he didn't recognize any of the schematics; no, no, no. If Vaughn had not seemed so short-tempered himself, Sark might have suspected him of impeding the process intentionally.

Weariness suffused Sydney's voice. "Nothing, in any of the files we've looked at?"

"No." Vaughn rubbed his hands over his face, and Sark didn't miss the way Sydney looked at the man she'd pined for so long when he wasn't able to see, loss written all over her face. It would have been foolish, of course, to hope she might be able to simply put him behind her. Even so, that did not prevent the irritation he felt seeing the woman he loved so preoccupied with another man.

He'd been silent for most of their survey of Rambaldi's works (giving him ample time to study Sydney's responses), only because he he'd had nothing to add. Now, however, a possibility occurred to him. "Let's say," he put in, "for the sake of argument, that Ms. Santos has in fact been channeling Milo Rambaldi."

"Okay," Sydney agreed, more readily than she would have weeks earlier. "Go on."

Vaughn just turned tired eyes his direction, his expression—as it so often seemed to be whenever he was forced to interact with Sark—slightly pained.

"There's no guarantee, in that case, that she would employ any of the weapons we know of, or that Irina has catalogued here. We have only what's been discovered of Rambaldi's works to draw from; Ms. Santos has Rambaldi himself."

There was a moment or two of silence. Then Sydney said, exasperated: "So this is just a waste of time."

"We couldn't have know that until we went through them all," he pointed out sensibly, "and if Ms. Santos had been employing one of the known artifacts . . . ."

"It would have been worth it, I know." Sydney closed her eyes. "So we try it another way. Vaughn, you said she was having dreams. Nightmares. What were they about?"

"It depended. People screaming. Fire. Darkness." He shook his head. "Bugs crawling all over her skin. Nothing especially mystical or even consistent." He smiled weakly. "I guess I'm not much help."

Surely the man wasn't expecting their sympathy for that? But Sydney nonetheless seemed ready to give it.

"What _do_ you recall, Mr. Vaughn?" he inquired before she could speak, letting a little snideness creep into his tone. "Perhaps we can start from there, instead."

"That's not a bad idea," Sydney said, shooting him a warning look that he pretended not to see.

Vaughn had chosen to ignore him anyway. "Formulas I can't remember well enough to recreate, mostly. Notes in a language I didn't know; Nadia didn't either, when she wasn't . . . ." He trailed off, grimaced.

"Which means we also can't _rule out_ any of the devices Mom has on file either," Sydney concluded, "and we're back where we started."

Sark pulled the file containing a breakdown of the Passenger prophecies up on his computer screen, let his eyes wander over them for he thousandth time, though he knew them now by heart. "_The Passenger and the Chosen One shall battle . ._ ." he murmured.

"_And neither shall survive_," Vaughn finished for him, unbidden.

"Or _and only one shall survive_," Sydney reminded them all, but particularly, he suspected, herself. Her stubborn insistence that the Rambaldi followers were insane had given way bit by bit these past few weeks, and that fact concerned him; how much less likely was she to survive, if she believed she were not meant to? The idea of a world with Sydney Bristow in it was one he refused to contemplate.

He said firmly, "Neither is the result we're after. But table that for the moment. Though we remain unsure what we are dealing with, we do know who will be involved." He inclined his head toward the woman seated around the table to his right. "We have the Chosen One, Sydney."

"The Passenger," Sydney volunteered, "Nadia."

"And Mr. Vaughn, the man who may be able to stop her," he finished.

"And you," Sydney said.

"Perhaps." The prophecy's credibility, much less its wording, was hardly conclusive.

"What's Sark have to do with this?" Vaughn intruded.

Sark took a moment to remind himself once again that the other man was not worth the energy his irritation would require, then answered calmly. "There's a further prophecy of questionable validity indicating a helpmate of the Chosen One."

"And that's you because . . . ?"

This time, reminding himself did not work. "Do you see anyone else here, Mr. Vaughn?"

"It could be me."

"Oh, because you've been of so much assistance since you arrived here."

"And where exactly how far had you gotten _without_ me?"

"Both of you, shut up." Sydney was holding one hand up, her head tilted slightly, brow furrowed. "What if . . . what if Nadia's not the Passenger."

They both turned to her. He was intrigued. Vaughn largely seemed weary.

"The contact of Mom's I met in Morocco. He described Milo Rambaldi's life before he become 'Rambaldi'—and he was just a regular guy. What if Nadia isn't channeling Rambaldi at all? What if she's channeling the same thing Rambaldi was channeling?"

"The 'Passenger,'" Sark murmured. "Of course. Not Ms. Santos herself, but the persona 'riding along' with her. That's brilliant."

"You said the formula you and Nadia used was in a language older than fifteenth century Italian, right Vaughn?"

Cautiously, Vaughn nodded.

"Maybe Rambaldi was only a vehicle for something else—for someone else entirely. The someone who invented all those things, and wrote all those prophecies. The Prophet."

"There is something that has always puzzled me about Rambaldi's prophecies," Sark mused aloud. "It's contradictions. The Page 47 prophecy particularly. _The one to bring forth my works_, that sounds positive, does it not? But then—_a single glance would have quelled her fire_. Regret. About the very same thing the prophecy is so euphoric about mere lines previous. It makes no logical sense. But if we assume it was not one man, but two, behind the pen—"

"If we assume," Sydney said, picking up his thought, "that there is the Prophet, who wants that utter desolation, and Rambaldi, who is struggling against it—"

"Then it suddenly makes sense. Why he would foretell great if apocalyptic events, preserve them for future generations, then encode within them the very information necessary to prevent their occurrence."

"It explains the accounts of Rambaldi's transformation that Abdullah collected. And it explains why Nadia and I would—how either of us could ever—" Sydney faltered, then came back stronger. "It means we can still save Nadia. We might be able to destroy Rambaldi without destroying my sister too."

But Sydney might still die, depending on the version of the prophecy one believed. And when their eyes met, his and hers, he saw that she saw that, and accepted it, too.


	35. Part Thirty Five

**Part Thirty-Five**

It's so loud in her head, all the time, time all tumbled together, flashes—her life, others' lives, laughing, fucking, sobbing—sounds crowded in on all sides, and she can't shut them out, though she presses her hands to her ears and squeezes her eyes as tight as she can. But it doesn't matter how loud it is, she can still always hear the voice, silky whispers cutting through the noise.

_I've waited for you for so long._

Sometimes it's sweet to her. _Pretty Nadia, such a pretty girl._

Other times it isn't. _He's run back to her; he never loved you, no one ever did or could._

It seems to like it when she cries. _They've all abandoned you._ It feels closer then. _Sydney will kill you if she can._

No, no. She digs her fingernails into her palms, fighting, always fighting, so tired of fighting.

_It'll be so beautiful_, it says, and the flames fill her vision, burn her out, make her scream. _You and I together, we'll make the world beautiful again._ The flames rise and she's engulfed, she's burning, and then the world is black.


	36. Part Thirty Six

**Part Thirty-Six**

Hunger finally caught up with Sydney Bristow late that evening as she and Vaughn worked silently across the long dining room table from one another, each engrossed in their own subset of the digital images Sark's men had retrieved from the warehouse Nadia abandoned shortly after Vaughn's departure—shortly, Sydney assumed, after it was clear Vaughn had gone out for more than coffee and supplies.

"Looks like you've proved helpful after all, Mr. Vaughn," Sark had commented when the files came through.

"What are you talking about?" Vaughn sounded alarmed, and had pushed back his chair and gone around to look at Sark's screen almost before he'd stopped speaking.

"After I triangulated the location of your original phone call, I had a few of my men in the area do a sweep of the nearby buildings most likely to be housing you and Ms. Santos." Sark sounded distracted, as he presumably began transferring the files to a location where she, too, could see them, but the fury in Vaughn's voice caught his attention.

"You traced my phone call?"

"And I had you followed on your way to our meet, as well," Sark replied irritably. "Did you think I wouldn't attempt to authenticate your story? Last time we met you pointed a gun at our heads and the woman we had come to rescue knocked Sydney unconscious. Forgive me for suspecting the situation might be other than as you presented it."

Sydney had ignored the exchange—it wasn't the first instance of raised voices between the two of them that day, and wouldn't be the last. The things Sark did that barely fazed her anymore still put Vaughn's back up, and every time Vaughn reacted, Sark took it as an excuse to needle him further.

Eventually Sydney had suggested, none too gently, that one of them ought to try working in a separate room. They'd both ignored her, but had also abandoned the tiff they were in the middle of. And few minutes afterward Sark had left to take a phone call in the kitchen and didn't return.

An hour and a half later she took a stretch break and noticed her stomach felt particularly hollow. So she left her computer open and wandered into the kitchen to fix herself a sandwich—and, she admitted, to look in on Sark, who she'd gotten used to having across the table.

He looked up at her when she entered, and smiled faintly. "Hello, Sydney."

"Sark," she said, and smiled back. "How's your work going?"

"Slowly," he said, then admitted wryly, "though not as slowly as before."

His eyes had that sleepy look they got whenever he looked at a computer screen too long, and it reminded her of mornings in his bed. Not mornings like this last one, with her kind of sore and still tired and tense about going down and facing Vaughn, but better ones. If they'd been alone in the house she'd have gone over to him, maybe straddled his lap and lay her cheek on his shoulder, just to feel him, to feel comforted (and it was so much less strange now, thinking of "Sark" and "comfort" in the same sentence). But they weren't alone in the house. Vaughn was there. Vaughn, and all the memories of home and work that surrounded him like a cloud of perfume, too sweet, and so she just smiled again, tucked her hair behind one ear, and went to the fridge to pull out what she needed for her sandwich.

When she'd constructed something respectable—turkey and provolone slices, some lettuce, but no mayonnaise or tomato or pickles, too much trouble, too messy—she sat at the table with him and ate while he worked. Like this, she could almost forget Vaughn in the next room, and her sister out there, potentially being ridden by a power-mad prophet with a penchant for destruction.

"Penny for your thoughts."

Sark's voice startled her; she looked down at the sandwich in her hands and realized she'd been holding it without taking a bite for longer than she should have.

"Don't you mean a pence?"

"I'm a man of many currencies. Also, penny _is_ the singular form of pence." He pushed the lid of his laptop closed, folded his hands over it, and waited.

She sighed, and put the sandwich down. "All this waiting around is torture," she said. "There's too much time to think."

"And you're a woman of action," he observed, and she turned her face to try to hide the uneasy flush that brought to her cheeks.

"I thought this was going to be it—Vaughn would know something, we'd rush off, and even if we lost . . . ." She shook her head. "What happens if we just . . . miss it? If—if Nadia unleashes some lethal, world-ending death ray and it's over before we even know its happening?"

He shook his head. "That's not the way it will happen. We'll know. We'll be there."

"Because the prophecies say so?"

"And because that's the way the prophecy-maker wants it," he said. "I'm personally more concerned we'll be unprepared when the moment arrives. These images have so far yielded absolutely nothing of use. Much like Mr. Vaughn himself."

Sydney nearly smiled. "You really don't like him, do you."

"Not in the slightest," he agreed readily.

"And not just," and didn't this feel vain, "because of me?"

"No," he agreed, "though that plays a part. I find his lack of control appalling, and his espionage skills—these past few weeks, perhaps, excepted—to be second-rate. He quite simply irritates me, on nearly every possible level."

"And you still brought him here, into your home."

He looked at her seriously. "For you, Sydney, I would bear far worse than irritation."

She wasn't sure quite how to respond to that, and so she picked up her sandwich again, and took a bite to buy time. She chewed slowly, and then swallowed. "Thank you," she said finally.

He nodded. And then he changed the subject, possibly as uncomfortable as she was with the serious turn. "Did you know your mother believed it was no accident that you were able to find so many of Rambaldi's artifacts?"

"Because I'm the Chosen One?" she chanced. Which was a far eerier idea now that she had managed to accept it might be true.

His lips curved, she assumed, at the irritation at her tone. "Well, yes. But her theory was that it wasn't your identity as the Chosen One that made you so good at it, but something else that made you _both_ the Chosen One _and_ so adept at locating Milo Rambaldi's . . . devices. Your genes."

Her eyebrows raised at that. "She thought it was genetic?"

"Apparently." He shrugged. "It's an intriguing theory, to be sure. Rambaldi was particularly interested in genetics. The Page 47 prophecy names genetic markers as the clearest method of identifying its subject. It's the way your mother—who shares those markers with you—explained her own successes."

"Come on, Sark. It's not like our DNA lights up whenever we're near something Rambaldi touched."

He laughed. "Our genes are the basis for everything about us: our intellect, our vision, our temperament. The way we see our world. In the right combination, perhaps they allow one to see things others do not. Perhaps they attune one to certain things."

"And if you're a prophetic genius with an interest in genetics who wanted to hide things for a couple hundred years, for one person in particular to find, that might be an effective—but insane—way to do it. I get it. But it doesn't help us find Nadia." She sighed, and finished off the rest of the sandwich. She'd barely tasted it, but her stomach felt better. "I should get back to work."

"You could work in here," he suggested casually.

She recognized that must have taken a lot for him to ask, and wanted to say yes, but, "It may not be smart to leave Vaughn alone too long, honestly. And since I'm the one less likely to rip his throat out, surprisingly, that means I get to keep an eye on him."

"Lucky me," Sark murmured.

She stood and took her plate to the sink, rinsed it, and set it down with the breakfast and lunch dishes. Someone would have to take care of those eventually; she was pretty sure Sark had dismissed most of the household staff (not that she'd seen them often even when they were around).

She was preparing herself mentally to walk back out to the dining room when Sark said, "Sydney," quietly and caught her arm. "Hold a moment."

"What's wrong?" she asked, seeing the pensive look in his eyes when she turned.

He looked startled at the question. "Nothing." He took her hand, pulled her toward him, away from the counter and through the open door of the dim pantry.

"What are we doing?" Sydney asked, feeling wary. This was a mood of Sark's she wasn't familiar with.

He was looking at her mouth, the heat of his body distinct in the small space. His attention made her breathing irregular and arousal murmur in her belly. Her breath came shallowly. "Let me kiss you, Sydney." His words were barely a murmur. "I haven't kissed you in so long."

She swallowed. "It's only been two days."

"A very long two days. Too long not to have tasted you." His hands were at her hips, moving her backwards until she felt the pantry shelves bump against the small of her back, the backs of her thighs.

She felt dizzy. He was so close to her, only a breath of space between their mouths, their bodies. Close but not quite touching, tension caught between.

"I won't unless you ask me to," he said. "Say it, Sydney. Ask me to kiss you."

She hesitated—why, she wasn't sure—and felt the leashed desire, building, trembling, the heat rising in his eyes and threatening to spill over into action, even anger.

Just before it did, just at the moment, she bit back a moan and gasped it, "Kiss me," and his mouth closed on hers, his hand coming up to brace the back of her neck as he pressed into her, tasting her tongue, bending her to him. She shuddered. Something about this—Vaughn just beyond the door, the darkness around them—made the sensations sharper, the taste of him more poignant. She shifted herself against him as if she were trying to fit herself into his flesh, and heard his shaky breath as he kissed her jaw, her throat, her lips again, thumb caressing the corner of her mouth, opening her for him to claim.

"Sydney, I think I found the—Oh."

Vaughn sounded stunned. She couldn't bring herself to turn her head, so she didn't know what he looked like. She'd pulled back from their embrace when she'd heard her name, felt Vaughn's voice sharp inside her, but the idea of looking at him made her queasy. Sark's hands rubbed up and down her upper arms, and she suspected he wasn't looking at Vaughn either.

Vaughn said awkwardly, "I'll—sorry." And then he was gone again.

Sark leaned his forehead against hers and let his breath out, then took a step back, studied her carefully, and adjusted the collar of her shirt. He cleared his throat. "You'll want to see what he was after." So strange—but so Sark—for his voice to be so neutral after what had just happened. She was still shaky, still yearning.

"I should," she said finally. "It might be important."

"Of course. Sydney—" He kissed her again, roughly, possessively, hand at the back of her neck. "Remember—" He hesitated, shook his head.

But she heard the words as if he'd actually said them: _Remember who you belong to._ Except that couldn't have been what he'd meant to say. Not really. Sark wasn't the jealous type. Right?

Vaughn was sitting stiffly at the computer when she reentered the dining room. "I didn't mean to interrupt," he said as stiffly as he sat, not looking at her.

She cleared her throat. "What did you find?"

"I, ah—I matched some of the sketches from the warehouse with Irina's diagrams." He gestured to his computer, and she moved around to where she could see the screen. The images in the separate windows were nearly identical, and she felt a spasm of excitement that had nothing to do with where Sark's hands had been a few moments before.

"It's not exact, but it's not far off. Particularly when you look at the mechanism that begins the reaction here—" He pointed.

Sydney bent close, squinting at her mother's notes. The feeling of having Vaughn so familiarly near her was secondary to the nausea that rose in her stomach. "Is that—isn't this the device Sloane used in Mexico?"

"Sloane, and Sark." Vaughn's lips were drawn thin. It was a conclusion he'd already come to, obviously. And one that only reminded him of Sark's . . . prior affiliations.

Her heartbeat spiked, but she kept her voice calm. "We should call Sark in, then. He'll be able to tell better than we will."

Sark's conclusion was the same—that this was the same device he and Sloane had employed at the embassy in Mexico City. His voice was grim as he described its functioning: the way it raised the temperature of water and fat molecules to burn living creatures from the inside out; the charred skeletons left behind, human lives marked in soot.

"But that's not our biggest concern, here," Sark said. "The original device was only designed to reach a short distance, perhaps 2,000 feet. This design, with the proper power source, would reach much further."

"How much further?" Sydney asked.

"Hundreds of miles, perhaps thousands."

There was silence, into which Vaughn frowned. "I don't want to sound like I'm undervaluing the lives that would be lost, but I thought we were talking 'utter desolation'—world-ending stuff."

"Thousands of miles in every direction, Mr. Vaughn. Including up, and down. Do you have any notion of the damage this could do to our ecosystem? To the water that collects beneath the earth? Not to mention the sheer energy that would be released. The rest of the world would not meet an immediate fiery death, but I daresay it wouldn't be far behind. At minimum, life on Earth would be irrevocably altered."

Sydney took a deep steadying breath and pointed to the left side of the sketch. "Is that the power source?"

"If I had to hazard a guess."

"It looks familiar."

"It should. I believe you destroyed the prototype in Taipai. Twice."

Of course. She should have recognized it right away; it was just that it had been years since she'd seen it. The memories came back clearly, though, now that she focused on them. The too-tight red wig, the blood dried on her mouth, the weight of the wrapped metal in her hands. And then the flood—God, the flood—running, the water chasing behind her, and Vaughn going under. . . .

Her eyes shifted to him just as he paled. "Sydney," he said, voice tight, "the virus."

"Whoever the heat blast didn't kill, the virus would," she said hollowly. Because the pulses of energy the Mueller device drove would heat and destroy the device as well, releasing the fluid inside.

"But there's an antidote," Vaughn said. "If we started producing it now . . ."

"Not enough time," Sark said. "Not near enough time. And even then we'd need a blood sample from each person infected in order to calibrate each dose correctly."

Sydney reached out blindly, and Sark's hand was there, gripping hers surely. She turned to look at him, and asked, "So what do we do now?"

He squeezed her hand, then released it to pull his cell phone from the inside pocket of his jacket. He hit a few buttons, waited a moment, then spoke, holding her gaze with his own: "I need you to find me every location in eastern Europe capable of housing a structure over 40 feet in diameter and 6 stories in height. Start with buildings held under the name Derevko, Elena. . . ."


	37. Part Thirty Seven

**Part Thirty-Seven**

She catches flashes: dreams, memories, blurry mixes of the two.

_Vaughn is gazing down at her. She is lying beneath him and somewhere, in the distance, there are wedding bells. The windows are open. The late afternoon light filters in and the breeze is soft and smells sweetly of flowers. She smiles; she is happy. He leans down to kiss her . . ._

"What is it?"

"Ma'am, you—you asked for a status update."

"And you drew the short straw."

"I . . . The device is nearly completed. It's just the rotation speed that's not quite—"

"You'll let me know the moment it's ready."

_. . . and when she opens her eyes again it's not Vaughn above her, but Julian Sark. It's much later; the wind is chilly. She sees the sharp angles and even planes of his face only by low lamp light. "Sorry, love," Sark says, "the honeymoon is over." He drags her from the bed, even as she fights him, cries out, scratches at his hands. There is a full length mirror, and he yanks her in front of him, in front of it. She looks at her reflection. Sydney looks back. She feels something press against her temple, and it's a gun. Sark is holding a gun to her head. Sydney's head._

Milo Rambaldi talks to her sometimes. Milo Rambaldi, or the voice's memory of him. He says he is sorry. He tells her that he tried to stop this. But that now it is probably too late.

"_No, please!" she cries, but her voice is barely a whisper. Sydney is smiling. Sark's reflection is kissing the side of her neck, as she leans her head into the barrel of the gun. She says, knowingly, "Some part of me always knew."_

Milo Rambaldi is sitting at a desk, hand moving furiously as he scribbles down his revelations, prophetic whispers, formulas, visions of miraculous devices and a woman, lovely, heartbreaking: damned. The voice talks to him too. It tells him about what the world will become, the mess people will make of it. Corruption, pain, cruelty. It's unthinkable now, but it only gets worse, so much worse. The voice whispers that they must destroy it, that now is not the right time, that what they need hasn't been invented yet, but he has a plan, he has a way, but events must be set in motion here, now. Rambaldi is crying. He doesn't want the world to end. But he doesn't want the visions to stop either.

_Her cheeks are wet with tears. She is standing in front of the mirror but the man behind her is gone, and so is the gun, and it is her own face looking back at her at last. She is wearing a wedding dress. The hem is dipped in blood_

_To have and to hold_, the voice whispers, _till death do us part_.


	38. Part Thirty Eight

**Part Thirty-Eigh****t**

Robert Browning once said, a man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?

Mr. Sark was an atheist.

Even so, heaven was a fair metaphor for Sydney Bristow. She had always been, for him, a symbol of his ongoing quest for what he did not have but which, he arrogantly believed, he one day could—by taking the correct measures—possess. Desiring her from afar, he'd seen her love as a prize of sorts—a thing he might achieve were he a good enough boy. Now he knew better. Her affection was a boon, never earned but rather granted irregardless of what one might deserve—a gift, a matter not of worthiness but grace.

If he were forced to apply biblical terms to his relationship with Sydney, however, he had always preferred to think of her as the Adam to his tempter Eve—or the Eve, perhaps, to his snake. Mr. Vaughn, then, would play the role of pitiable Adam. But of course, that story had not ended very well for the snake; it had ended better for the outcast couple.

. . . which brought him back to the very thing he'd been attempting, with his philosophical musing, to avoid dwelling on: losing Sydney Bristow.

He'd cared for women. Allison, for instance. And other girls before her. He had always had a yearning inside him (even as frequently as he'd chosen to control it, sublimate it) for the comfort of another—a proclivity that, paired with a healthy respect and admiration for the fairer sex (no doubt thanks in large part to Irina Derevko), meant he was rarely truly alone for long.

But Sydney was different. The time he had spent with her had been different. Different because he was different, of course, but that wasn't all. He felt comfortable with Sydney. He trusted her, in a way he had rarely trusted anyone. Perhaps her mother—before the two years he'd spent in CIA custody.

The difference with which he was concerned, however, was that there was an end date stamped on their association. The success of their aims meant the end of their time together, he'd always known. He had allowed himself to wish otherwise—to spin the notion out into elaborate, comforting daydreams—but deep down he'd still known the truth. No matter what happened, he would lose Sydney Bristow.

Her words to the contrary—even had she offered them, which she had not—made no difference. Once she returned to the bosom of her precious CIA—her father, her friends, duty and patriotism—what use would she have for him? And once returned to her old life, she would see her decisions these past few months differently. She would rethink them. And however she ended up explaining their liaison to herself, it certainly wouldn't be in a way that could allow it to continue. Not with his well-deserved terrorist status still, he presumed, intact. No, he had to face facts: he needed Sydney far more than Sydney needed him.

He only hoped, when all was said and done, she at least did not return to Michael Vaughn.

Vaughn had tucked himself into the dark corner of the backseat, behind Sydney, who sat up front with Sark in the car they'd taken from the airport rental agency (Sydney had called it borrowing; he only hoped they were alive to do the returning). It was 3 a.m., and the roads were quiet and dark; there was no need to speak as they sped through the deserted countryside, and so they did not. When the plane had landed he'd received a handful of grainy images on his phone, taken of the inside of the abandoned military buildings to which they were now headed, and he'd recognized the apparatus of his suitcase neutron bomb writ large, blown up to vulgar proportions, as well as the shape of the Mueller device, equally massive. "Final calibrations in progress," the accompanying message had said, and so now they were racing the clock—racing, it felt like, the dawn—to arrive in time.

He should have been more concerned about the struggle ahead, he knew, but instead he felt a strange sense of peace, of finality. He felt as if his whole life, in some ways—his training with Irina, his time with Arvin Sloane, his fascination with and attraction to Sydney—had been leading up to precisely this moment.

Sydney appeared to feel no such thing. The lines of her face were tight and tense, though her body seemed looser than before, limber, ready for a fight now that they were moving, now that action was imminent.

He understood that she did not consider this the ultimate end to which her life had always been leading, the way he did; she had not, after all, been groomed for this the way she might have been, had her involvement in Rambaldi's prophecies been known sooner, or had her life fallen into others' hands. Not as he had. And not even as Nadia had, prodded and injected since childhood, growing up under Elena Derevko's auspices. (Though of course, he reflected, it might not be Nadia's psychology that counted here so much as their hypothesized Prophet's.)

No, he suspected Sydney viewed this rather as another too-harsh speed bump on the road of her life—a healthier point of view, to be certain, particularly for a woman whose road had been as bumpy as hers. Her tenacity—her stubborn idiocy—was one of the things about her that perplexed him, and fascinated him, most. It was in that, in her ability to push through, doggedly, no matter what she faced, more than anything that she was truly her father's daughter. Irina went around, not through. And Irina had taught him to do the same.

The things Irina had taught him were, of course, myriad. But her end goal, he suspected, in many ways had been to prepare him for playing the role he did now, whether it was the one Rambaldi's prophecy had foreseen for him or not. Irina's physical absence from this drama was deceptive; in truth, all its players had been shaped by her hand. He, in his training. Sydney and Nadia, both, in her absence, and through her genes. Vaughn, by her apparent murder of his father—which drove him to the acts that had brought them all here, to this moment, to these fates. Sark doubted even Rambaldi could have seen the myriad ways in which Irina had caused his prophecies to come to be.

Sark braked the car to a stop a mile and a half from the building, as close as they dared drive, and pulled off into the grass. They slipped out silently, retrieved the supplies from the trunk, locked everything up and then, looking both ways, walked back out into the street.

Their plan was a simple one, born of limited time and knowledge, and high stakes: destroy the machine. It was always simpler to destroy than to build, to prevent something than to make it happen; entropy, inexorable as gravity, would be on their side. The minimum they needed accomplish was to throw off one vital segment of just one of the two parts, power supply and bomb, but full destruction of both would buy them more time. Because time was all they would be earning here, unless they could stop Nadia permanently via apprehension (Sydney's preference) or lethal force (something he was more than prepared to employ, should Sydney's life be at stake; otherwise he would defer to her wishes). No matter what they did here, the Passenger could rebuild elsewhere. In that sense, it was their endeavor, his and Sydney's (and, he supposed, Vaughn's), that was the difficult one. After all, they strove to save the world, not end it.

He'd suggested Sydney call her father; she'd disagreed. She'd said the operation was better small—that if they ended up needing back-up, they'd have already failed.

Sydney levered up the manhole cover, slid it to the side with a scrape terrifying loud in the silence, and then she, then Vaughn, then Sark himself lowered into the damp dark of the sewers. By the time he reached the bottom of the ladder (wishing he'd thought to bring gloves), Sydney had turned her flashlight on. Sark retrieved his and turned it on as well. And the three of them began their rank, unpleasant underground trek.

_The things one does_, Sark reflected with a sigh as he followed Vaughn's back in the low light, _for love_.

It was enough to make a man believe in God.

-

Nearly half an hour later they reached the place where the sewer dropped and the underground tunnels of the military complex were accessible through the gap Sark's men had blasted open the day before.

Sydney laced her hands together and boosted Vaughn up; Sark did the same for her, then allowed her to assist him past the vertical gap and onto the drier ledge above, locking his fingers around her wrist as he used his other hand for leverage to pull himself up.

Shortly, they reached the point at which they were to part ways: Vaughn would head to the left and the building holding the Mueller device; he and Sydney would go to the right, and the bomb.

"Why does Sydney go with you?" Vaughn had demanded earlier that day.

Sydney had interrupted before Sark could reply in an appropriately scathing manner. "Look, Sark's the one who knows the bomb best. And he doesn't know Nadia the way you and I do. This way if she's in either building . . ." Sydney hadn't finished the sentence. Sark suspected neither she nor Vaughn had wanted her to.

But Sark wondered about Vaughn's reliability. Not that he didn't believe Vaughn, too, wished to stop what Nadia was doing. He simply was not sure whether Vaughn was capable of doing what was necessary to stop it. He knew he himself was; he suspected, if it came to that, Sydney was as well. She'd made similar sacrifices before. But Vaughn was an unknown quantity. He had proved himself . . . _unpredictable_ of late.

Sydney handed Vaughn a loaded gun from the bag she carried and mouthed, _Be careful_.

He nodded, looked briefly at Sark, and for a moment seemed as if he might say something. But then, with a pained smile, he turned and went. They'd have no contact now until they had completed their respective missions—_if_ they completed their respective missions.

They had to wait fifty seconds to allow Vaughn a head start toward his more distant destination. In the dark, Sydney looked to him, and he met her eyes solidly, grimly. If she was looking for reassurance as to their chances, he didn't have it to give; he had only his promise that he wouldn't desert her. No matter what.

For a moment they were there together, just the two of them, nothing else. Her eyes were dark in the pale of her singular face. He'd wasted so much of his life, was all he could think. He'd spent it calculating and killing and fulfilling meaningless whims, his own and others', when but perhaps for a twist or two of fate, he could have spent at least some of it with her. He wanted to tell her, wanted her to know how she'd changed him—and his lips parted as if to say it—

But then she gave him a faint smile, and tapped her wrist. Fifty seconds had elapsed. So he forced the words back down.

The passageway narrowed as they moved through it, bodies close to the left side of the wall, Sydney ahead, Sark behind. Their breath and muted footfalls were the only sounds as they progressed quickly, fluidly. His perception narrowed, sharpened, his mind cataloguing every shadow. They would follow this passage until they reached the entrance to ground level; from there they would make their way as unobtrusively as possible through the side hallway and into the main warehouse area, where they would place the explosives packed into the bag hung across his body as close to the bomb's trigger mechanism as possible. Then, once they were out of range, they'd blow the bloody thing up.

The passage up from the tunnels into the building was precisely where they'd expected it to be. With a last fleeting smile, Sydney pulled down the rusted ladder, and started to climb. He followed. Once they pushed their way through the hatch at the top, there'd be no time for smiling; they'd need to move as quickly as possible. And in fact there turned out to be less time even than expected; he had barely emerged from the hatch when the first guard came around the corner. Sydney fired her gun, drove the man back behind the corner for cover as he joined her against the wall.

"That was bracing," he murmured, releasing the safety on his own gun and feeling the explosives heavy, dangerous, against his back.

"It isn't exactly the way we were hoping this would go." Sydney slid along the wall towards the corner. And then the man stepped back out into sight, backed by two other guards, with more no doubt close behind.

_Hell_.

All three shots missed, and Sydney got off one shot in return before the guards retreated once more. He'd missed his chance, busy liberating a smoke bomb from his bag.

Sydney glanced back, saw what was in his hands. "We run for it, then?" she asked, voice low.

"Unless you have a better idea," he said, truly hoping she did.

She shook her head. "Throw it."

It landed with a tinny rattle, rolled . . . and split itself open with a forceful _pop_. Smoke clouded the hallway in seconds, and once he felt Sydney spring beside him from the relative safety of the wall he moved too, breath locked tight in his lungs, eyes squinted as tightly as he dared. When the smoke cleared, hacking sounds still audible from the guards and the chemicals still stinging in his eyes, he and Sydney were on the other side of the hallway, with the guards between them and the hatch but hopefully with a clear path on to the bomb.

He looked at Sydney: muscles tensed under dark pants and tank, hair back in its braid, skin clean of makeup and expression focused and stark in its intensity. Her gun held low but ready. His Sydney. She looked fierce; she looked beautiful.

It could be the last time he ever saw her.

"You go," he said to her as loudly as he dared. "I'll hold them off. Otherwise we'll miss our window."

She pressed her lips together. He thought she would argue; he almost hoped she would, though he wouldn't have let her win. But of course she was smarter than that. "You're right."

She slid the bag she carried, the bulk of their weaponry, from her shoulders and set it at his feet. Reaching around him, she freed the bag of explosives from his body and refastened it around her own.

"Wait," he said. And then he did the most phenomenally idiotic, selfishly reckless thing he could ever recall having done: he took his eyes from the threat in front of him, and kissed her.

The contact was brief, chaste, impossibly wrenching. And then he released her, still tasting her on his lips.

"Go on," he told her. His voice felt rough.

She hesitated.

"Sydney," he said. "_Go_."


	39. Part Thirty Nine

**Part Thirty-Nine**

Sydney left the sound of gunfire behind as she sprinted down the hallway, focused on the distant point labeled in her mind's eye _out of range_. A bullet ricocheted off the wall at her left shoulder (her ears picked up Sark's curse, and the distinctive sound of his gunfire), and she pushed harder, though her muscles burned. No use holding anything back for later if she didn't live long enough to see it.

The hallway quieted, but she barely dropped her pace. If more men had been alerted, she didn't have much time.

She air she drew into her lungs felt good, the rhythm of her exhales steady. _Focus_. She had to focus. Not think about leaving Sark back there. (Sark could take care of himself.) Not think about what she might have to do if she found Nadia. (That was a bridge she prayed she wouldn't have to come to, much less cross.) Find the bomb, attach the explosives, get out. _Focus_.

She was nearly at the hallway's end; she skidded to a stop and dropped, finding the gun at her back one-handed and releasing it into her grasp. She listened. Everything was still. Her heart pounded hard and fast in her ears but carefully, silently, she eased open the fire door, flashed her eyes over the closest options for cover, and slid out and behind a stack of industrial barrels clustered a few feet from the door. Crouched there, she breathed carefully to calm her heart, and looked out finally into the rest of the cavernous hangar.

The device squatted, solid and round and sickeningly high, in the center of the room, dwarfing everything else in it. They'd assumed the structure must have been begun previous to Vaughn's defection, but seeing it there front of her, the sheer mass of it, confirmed that suspicion. It stretched nearly to the industrial roof overhead, radial alloy arms slanting out from its highest point to form a mockery of a roof. That roof was supported by a half-dozen vertical metal bars, bifurcated halfway down by horizontal bars and braces that stretched to the floor, a gleaming metal skeleton without the antiquated feel she'd come to expect from Rambaldi's work. This was too _modern_, too technological, too clean, all the pieces brand new. _Futuristic_, she thought. Except that its use meant no future anymore for anyone.

Her eyes were drawn by movement near the glass-encased, cylindrical heart of the thing, more than half the size of the structure itself. Its contents swirled slowly, mechanically, and silhouetted against its amber glow, at the end of a long metal catwalk, was a figure. Female. _Nadia_.

Sydney's insides clenched. It could be someone else. The figure didn't move like Nadia moved; its steps were too aggressive, and there was a hunch to its back. But . . . .

The figure moved. Away from the light that emanated from the device, across the catwalk, back towards where the catwalk joined the railed balcony that followed the line of the hangar's walls. And Sydney couldn't avoid knowing what she saw any longer. Nadia. Of course it was Nadia. She'd been stupid to think it could have been anyone else.

It was fate, after all. Prophesized.

The idea rang as false and hollow as it always did.

Sydney pressed closer to the barrels, held her breath. She just had to wait. She just had to wait for Nadia to walk the rest of the way to the wall, wait for her to leave. Then Sydney could find the right stairwell, get to the device's center. If they found Nadia once, they could find her again. And next time they'd be ready with a way to save her. They'd be ready.

She waited, counting off seconds in her head, until enough time would have elapsed for Nadia to reach the side, then risked a glance over the barrels at the catwalk. Empty. So was the track along the side. As swiftly as she dared, Sydney moved: away from her makeshift shelter, back out into the hallway. Still clear. (She had to believe that meant Sark was still holding the guards back.)

Past the door into the warehouse, there'd been another door, one under a bright red "exit" sign, that she had dismissed before since it clearly led not into the hangar but away from it. This time, it was exactly what she was looking for: the stairwell.

She paused just inside the door, listening for signs of company; the acoustics of most stairwells made it difficult to hide your presence in one, unless you were standing still. She heard only silence. Staying on the rubber-soled balls of her feet, she took the stairs two at a time, one hand securing the bag of explosives, and the other holding her gun. Not knowing exactly where Nadia had gone—not having Vaughn, or Dixon, or Sark on comms, on surveillance—made her nervous, and so she kept the inevitable sounds of her movement as muffled as possible.

The hard part came after the stairs. She reached the top of the second light and, opening the door as little as possible, slid out onto the metal grate, and exposure.

It was the longest moment of her life: she stood, back against the wall and the whole of the hangar laid out in front of her. Two stories of open air below, and four more above. No easy cover—no cover at all. She'd never felt so naked. But no one else was there.

She kept her eyes sharp on the open space before her as she started moving towards the catwalk, and the device. The distance seemed longer from here than it had from the ground.

Still nothing as she reached the center, stood close enough to the swirling core of the bomb to feel the heat on her skin. It didn't burn—not yet.

She lifted the bag from her shoulders, and set it down at her feet. She just had to attach the explosives, add the ignition (wrapped safely in a separate, fireproofed compartment), and go. She looked down at the bag's contents, then turned slightly to glance behind at the catwalk and the door.

That's when the blow caught her, hard, at the back of her head. She staggered, fell forward, caught herself on her hands. The bright flash of pain temporarily obscured all thought. Before she could get her feet under her to rise, a shadow fell across her, and across the grate beneath her.

"And this . . . this must be Sydney."

Sydney looked up. The words had come out of Nadia's mouth. The sound was the same, even the accent. But there was something wrong. Something different.

"Nadia?" Sydney whispered. The back of her head throbbed. She reached back, touched wetness with her fingertips.

"Nadia says she's sorry," the Prophet said out of Nadia's mouth. "She says she tried to stop it. Like Rambaldi tried."

Nadia's mouth was smiling. She must have come from behind the core. There was no other explanation for how she could have gotten close enough to hit her.

"You're insane," Sydney gasped. She pressed her hand to the back of her head, tried to slow the bleeding, tried to keep the dizziness at bay.

"Probably by now. I've been waiting a long time for this."

"For what?"

Nadia's arms spread out to either side. "For my works to be brought forth."

_This woman here depicted will possess unseen marks. Signs that she will be the one to bring forth my works._

"I won't help you." She gritted it through her teeth, even as the blackness threatened around the edges of her vision.

"It's already done." The Prophet's tone was mocking. "Catch up, Sydney. Did you think you were the Chosen One? You aren't. You never were."

_You never were_. The words reverberated in her brain as she fought to grasp it—not the idea itself, but what it meant. If she wasn't the Chosen One, then who—

Nadia. Of course. It had been Nadia all long. They shared the same genes. If Irina and Sydney had the genetic markers from the Page 47 prophecy, then it made sense that Nadia might have them too. They hadn't even thought of it.

"You were a rogue element. I didn't foresee you. That worried me, some. You might have been the wrench in my machine. But I see now I didn't need to be concerned." The Prophet bent down with Nadia's body. "You tried, Sydney, and that was brave of you. Nadia showed me you were brave. But in the end, you've only made this easier."

"Sydney!" The cry was sharp and painfully loud.

Sydney's vision swam, and she almost passed out as she felt herself yanked to her feet, back against Nadia's smaller, softer body. Nadia's arm was around her shoulders, strong as ever. Stronger. Sydney was too weak to struggle, could only tamp down on the wave of nausea and try to hold on.

"Hello, Michael," the Prophet said.

"Vaughn," Sydney managed, squeezing her eyes tight. "Don't—"

The Prophet jerked her tighter, sent her stomach roiling again and her head spinning.

"Let her go," Vaughn said. He was standing fifteen feet away, gun drawn, pointed at her. At them.

"I've been waiting for you, Michael," the Prophet said.

"Vaughn, it's not Nadia," Sydney forced out. Her breath was labored as she struggled not to pass out from the exertion. "We were . . . we were right."

"Nadia's still here, Michael. She's crying for you." Dimly, Sydney registered the dampness on her shoulder; Nadia's tears? But the Prophet's voice was steady. "She's sorry for you, being put in this position."

"What do you mean?"

"Who do you love the most, Michael? Who will you save?"

The words were light, and mocking, and it took a moment for the meaning to truly register. As it did, Sydney watched the horror wash over Vaughn's face. "Don't make me do this."

"Who will you sacrifice? Can you let Sydney die, if it means saving your world?"

There was a tremor in his body, in his voice. "I'm supposed to stop you."

"You're supposed to be the one who can. You have a choice, Michael. It doesn't have to be this way. Sydney's betrayed you. Even if you could kill me without harming her, she'll never be yours again. Not really. But I can give you Nadia back. She loves you. The rest of the world must die but you and Nadia, you could start a whole new world, just the two of you."

"You're crazy." Vaughn was still trembling.

"All right. Then Sydney, perhaps? She's still alive—for the moment. What if I offered you the rest of your life with her? Just the two of you, forever, no more Julian Sark, no more Covenant, no more anyone to take you away from each other ever again. Just put the gun down."

"No!" Sydney managed to cry, and Vaughn said, "I can't. I wish—I can't."

"But you can't hurt Sydney either. Not after all the hurt you've caused her already." Sydney could hear the smile in the Prophet's voice.

"What's a little more, then?" Vaughn said, but even Sydney, barely holding on to consciousness, could tell it was only a bluff. She wished it wasn't. _Just stop her_, she wanted to cry out. _Let me die__. But stop her._

And then she tumbled forwarded as if she had been pushed, felt her body slam into the mesh metal walkway and the impact jar her bones.

"Michael, please!" she heard Nadia scream—really Nadia, the alien tenor to her words gone.

And Sydney looked up just in time to see Vaughn, anguish distorting the lines of his face, pull the trigger, before the world went black.

-

She woke gasping, surging upwards off the metal floor, and saw Sark's tightly drawn face just before the pain came rushing back to her, undeniably present but far away enough to ignore. He braced her shoulders, and pushed the hair back from her eyes. "What—"

"Adrenaline," Sark said. "It will keep the pain at bay, and you conscious, for a few moments. Ms. Santos doesn't have very long, and I suspected you'd ever forgive me if I didn't revive you in time to say goodbye," he frowned, "no matter the risk to your own health."

Sydney worked to focus her eyes, and think through the buzz in her brain. Nadia had pushed her away. Vaughn had shot Nadia. Sydney's thigh stung. The adrenaline shot? "The guards . . . ."

"Your father has them secured. He also supplied me with the adrenaline."

"You—"

"I called him, yes, against your wishes, before we left my home." He looked back behind them, and murmured, "If only they could have arrived sooner."

Part of her was angry at him for doing it. But most of her didn't care—didn't care about anything, as the shot of adrenaline cleared the fuzziness from her mind, except for her sister.

She said, "Help me get to Nadia."

He supported her as she got to her knees and turned around. A few feet behind them, back where Sydney remembered falling before she'd blacked out, Nadia lay on her back, blood staining her shirt and dripping onto the metal, down to the warehouse floor twenty, thirty feet below. Vaughn was bent over her, holding her, and though she would have thought she'd feel pain, betrayal, anger, she only felt glad—glad that Nadia had someone to hold her.

Sark helped her lower down beside Nadia and then stepped back. "Oh, God, Nadia," she whispered. Nadia's face was sickly pale, and sweat had collected on her brow. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was very shallow.

"Nadia," she heard Vaughn say, "we're here, me and Sydney. Sydney's here."

Nadia didn't respond.

"Has she . . . ." Sydney swallowed. "Has she said anything since . . . ?"

"No," Vaughn said, voice low and rough. He didn't look up from Nadia's face.

"Nadia," Sydney said, holding back tears. "Nadia, I'm so sorry." She bent, shaky, and pressed her lips to Nadia's damp forehead, tasted salt and the sick taint of death.

"Sydney?" Nadia's voice was rough, and the effort wracked her with wet, painful coughing. Her eyes opened, and tears leaked from the corner of her eyes. "Are you—"

"It's okay," Sydney said, wiping her own tears away with the heel of her hand, laughing a little. "I'll be okay. You did great. You saved me."

She shook her head, just slightly, and gasped, coughed. When she could speak again, she said, "Michael did it. Michael—"

"I'm here," Vaughn said, lifting the hand he was holding and cradling it to his body. "Nadia, I never should have left you."

"No," she said. "No, it was the right thing." She closed her eyes briefly, and smiled, just slightly. When she opened them again, she focused hazily on Vaughn. "I think . . . I think some part of me always knew it would be you."

And then, eyes still open, she went still.

"Nadia!" Vaughn dropped her hand, leaned over her body to cup her face in his hands. "Nadia, please, God, I'm so sorry—I'm so—"

Sydney's strength gave out, her legs bucked, and suddenly Sark was there, holding her up, keeping her from falling. He saw the tears on her cheeks, murmured, "Ah, Sydney," and she squeezed his hand, tried to smile for him as well as she could with the adrenaline in her system fast being broken down, with the harsh cries of Vaughn's grief in her ears. Sark looked so worried, and he'd seemed to like her smile so much, these past few months. . . .

As she faded back into unconsciousness, she heard a voice saying, "I'll take her," and felt Sark's hands fall away as she was delivered safely into her father's arms.


	40. Part Forty

**Part Forty**

Julian Sark was intentionally late to the funeral.

There was no point in presenting all those stalwart agents of the U.S. government with such a temptation, was his chief rationale; surely if they were otherwise unoccupied by active grieving someone would consider it their patriotic duty to take him into custody.

Equally compelling a reason, however, was a different sort of apprehension—one regarding Agent Sydney Bristow, who was at the moment of his arrival just approaching the lectern set up at the grave site to deliver her younger sister's eulogy.

It was at her behest that he was there, of course—yet another foolish thing he'd done at her bidding. She hadn't issued the invitation herself; they hadn't, in fact, spoken since he'd delivered her into the care of her father shortly after Nadia Santos's death. Sydney was, however, the only member of her small family he hadn't spoken to in that time.

Irina had called him first.

"Jack told me what happened."

"Did he." He was lying in his empty bathtub, bottle of gin close by, well on his way to drunk and alone but for Harrison in his big, empty house—the location of which had used to be secret but now might as well be common knowledge, since the whole bloody CIA would know by now . . . or APO, or whatever combination of meaningless letters Jack Bristow's equally secret black ops unit was going by these days. He'd have to relocate, of course, but he just wasn't up to it just yet, and if the CIA came for him in the meantime then bully for them. Perhaps Sydney would visit him one in a while in his brand new glass cell.

"You sound awful." Irina's tone was sharp.

He sighed at the ceiling. "Do I."

"Sark. Are you mooning over my daughter?"

"Absolutely not."

A pause, in which he could almost hear the headache he was giving her. "I'll call back."

He made sure he was sober when she did. "I apologize for my condition when we spoke previously," he said to her smoothly, perfunctorily, when he picked up the phone. He stepped out of his house, inside which a half-dozen men were packing up his various worldly possessions—the ones that had never killed or maimed a man, at least; you didn't leave those sort of things just laying around—and closed the door behind him. "What can I do for you?

"Glad to hear you're feeling better," she said, sounding amused. Better than angry, since now that the gin had left his system, he had misplaced the death wish he had clearly been toying with by speaking to her the way he did. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"What can I do for you?" he repeated, and he suspected she even smiled.

She'd wanted to talk about her daughters—about the confrontation that had ended in her younger daughter's death. Sark wondered what she thought he could tell her; he'd not seen any more than Jack had, really. He'd come through the door to the warehouse only after the gunshot, just a few steps ahead of Jack. By the time he'd raced up the stairs and onto the catwalk, Vaughn was on his knees at Nadia's side, hands pressed to the gunshot wound at her chest. Sark could tell even at twenty paces she had no chance of surviving.

Vaughn looked up, eyes frantic, at Sark's first step onto the catwalk. It was the first time Vaughn had ever seemed relieved to see him (and, Sark dearly hoped, also the last). "Sydney's unconscious—I think she hit her head when she fell—when Nadia pushed her away. Oh God." He wiped sweat from his brow with the back of a blood-specked forearm, wild look in his eyes. "We have to get help."

"Help's coming," he said sharply, more concerned with pressing his fingertips to Sydney's carotid artery. Her pulse was steady. For the moment. Her freckles stood out against the paleness of her skin. So did the blossoming bruises—and the fading ones their sparring had put there only two nights before.

Jack Bristow burst in then, a handful of agents behind him. He went immediately to Sydney.

"Jack." Vaughn's voice, pleading. "Nadia—"

Jack glanced up at an agent, nodded, and the agent went to join Vaughn, kneeling over Nadia, with a field med kit. Jack had already turned his attention back to Sydney.

"She's stable," he declared grimly. "But we need to get her to a hospital soon."

"And Nadia?" Sark asked quietly beside him.

Jack met his eyes, and Sark knew that Jack too had registered the severity of Nadia's injury, and the low likelihood of her survival. But that hadn't been what Sark was asking.

"Jack, Sydney would want to say good-bye."

Jack's gaze turned to a glare, but he let Sark take the adrenaline from the med kit, stood back stiffly while Sark jammed the needle into Sydney's thigh, and allowed Sark to help Sydney to Nadia's side. It was more than Sark would have hoped—his own version of good-bye, one last thing he could do for her.

Though he ended up doing yet one more thing for her, whether she would ever know about it or not: he took care of Michael Vaughn.

It could have gone worse for Vaughn. Jack's agents came to take away Nadia's body, and Vaughn let them, sitting back with his knees pulled up a few feet away, eyes dull as he watched them go. Jack returned to inform Sark that he was departing with Sydney, but that he'd leave sufficient guards outside; a team would be coming later to deconstruct the devices and blow the buildings. From Jack, the information—and Sark's continued freedom—took the place of a thank you from anyone else. He spared Vaughn barely a glance as he left.

And then it was just Sark and Vaughn, and Vaughn said, tears still in eyes that looked off, empty, into the distance, "I don't know what to do now."

Jack hadn't taken Vaughn into custody either; it appeared as though being taken into custody had been what Vaughn had been expecting, and it was hard to fault him in that. Sark sighed silently, cursed himself, and offered Vaughn a hand up. Vaughn looked as surprised as Sark felt.

"Well, come on," Sark had snapped, and Vaughn had accepted, and Sark had gotten them both back to Europe, where they'd thankfully parted ways. Sark had returned to his empty house; he didn't know, nor care, where Vaughn had gone. Sark had more than fulfilled his obligation to the man. What he had learned during the time he spent with Vaughn on the return trip, however, had almost made his charitable instinct feel worthwhile.

As he relayed to Irina: Sydney was not the Chosen One, as it turned out; rather, Nadia was. The Passenger referred to Rambaldi—or rather, the same entity that had also possessed Rambaldi. It seemed that he and Sydney and Vaughn's hypothesis had been correct in that, at least.

"'_The Chosen One and the Passenger shall battle, and neither shall survive_,'" Irina murmured after a lengthy silence.

And neither had. But as Sydney had been able to keep her life, Sark had never been happier to be wrong.

He felt, however, that Irina's relief was less unadulterated. She had, after all, spent years of her life wholeheartedly devoted to a belief that had turned out to be incorrect. She had bet on the wrong daughter, manipulated Sydney unnecessarily, manipulated him unnecessarily (though in that, too, he was grateful for Irina's fallibility). Sydney had been put in danger, because of Irina.

That's what he assumed she was thinking, but this was, of course, Irina. Still, she was quiet for a long time before she said, finally, "Thank you for taking care of Sydney." And the line went dead.

He spent some time—largely but not solely courtesy of the large quantity of alcohol he'd consumed that first day or so back—considering the effects of the revelation on his own life. He'd been attached to the idea of having a preordained purpose, of filling the role of helpmate to Sydney's Chosen One. Its loss was more disturbing than he would have expected, both for the change it wrought in his conception of his tie to Sydney, and for the meaninglessness it left him with regarding the trajectory of his career. And if he were so affected, he reflected, what must Sydney be feeling? She'd never wanted the label "Chosen One"—she'd fought it every step of the way, railed against it at every opportunity, denied it to anyone who would listen (and had been, it turned out, quite correct)—but at the end she had come to accept it, in a way. In preparation to face Nadia she had even embraced it, however much she may have abhorred its touch. He thought it must be devastating—but then, it was hard to imagine Sydney feeling that way, knowing her as he felt he did now. It was hard to imagine her anything but glad: glad to be out from under Rambaldi's prophetic thumb, glad to live her life as she saw it. Glad to be free. Glad to know she always had been. Free will had been in many ways Sydney's dearest wish. He only wished he himself could be as glad of his own.

Jack Bristow had called a day later, while he was in the middle of dinner out, alone.

"I thought I'd arrange to have Sydney's things sent back," Jack said when Sark answered. Sark would have refused, just out of principle, except—"And let you know Sydney's been released from the hospital."

The last bit had been stiff, of course; Sark wouldn't have believed the man was calling of his own volition otherwise.

"I appreciate you letting me know," he replied with as much decorum as he could muster—being sincerely polite to Jack Bristow was a new and somewhat troubling experience. "And of course I'll ensure Sydney's things are cleaned and returned to her. Shall I send them to her home address?"

Jack gave him a post office box number, which amused him as much as it saddened him. _You still don't trust me with your daughter, do you, Jack? _Nevermind that Sark knew precisely where Sydney resided.

There was an awkward silence once Sark had repeated the address, committing it to memory, and then Jack had cleared his throat and said, "Nadia's funeral is tomorrow."

"Oh?" Sark had responded neutrally, politely, wary of Jack's intentions. He waved off the waiter who approached to refill his glass.

"It would mean a lot to Sydney," Jack had said, "if you came."

In the end, Sark hadn't been able to stay away.

At the lectern, Sydney was tall and pale, her face unmade, clothed in a conservative black skirted suit and black pumps. The delicate hairs around her face fluttered in the wind as she spoke of the woman at whose hands she had nearly lost her life only four days previous. The rest was pulled back low at her neck, exposing the vulnerability of her features.

There was rain on the air, the scent heavy, dark, and sweet. He lingered on the outmost edge of the gathered crowd of mourners, solitary and gray in his dark charcoal suit and no tie, a few feet from the protection of the closest cluster of trees. From where he stood he could not hear her words, only see the expressions as they flitted across her face: love, sorrow, determination, grief.

It was too soon, and too long, before she finished speaking; it meant it was time for him to depart. The wind picked up; a light drizzle began to fall. Sydney stepped from the podium and away from the grave, and into the arms of the man standing closest to it—Michael Vaughn, Sark realized belatedly, back within the fold after all. They held onto each other longer than Sark was willing to watch; he turned his eyes to the umbrella he'd brought with him, pressed it into its full shape, and lifted it above his head.

When he looked back to Sydney—one last glance, to take with him—she was staring at him. Had seen him. Her lips were parted—in surprise? In dismay? She took a step toward him (past her father, who looked over his shoulder to see what had caught his daughter's attention, lips a grim line), but before she could take another she was being drawn into the small crowd at the graveside, into consoling embraces, quick sympathetic squeezes of her hand, murmured words.

He lost sight of her for a few moments, but then there she was, moving through the throng, through the light fall of rain, until she was standing in front of him.

"You came," she said quietly.

"Of course," he returned. He felt foolish, awkward, standing there. Uncertain of his next move.

She dimpled into a smile, tears still wet on her lashes. She squeezed his hand. "Thank you."

And then Sydney stood beside him, hand in his, as, at the lectern, the priest read the final words of the service—_ashes to ashes, dust to dust_—and put Nadia Santos's soul to rest.

-end-

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Many thanks to people-alwayz-leave, Katie Lupin, and FeralElektra for leaving reviews-- you guys rock. (And Katie, if you're still lost after this last chapter, lemme know!)


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